Work Text:
Telepathy
There was a serious threat to earth again. A telepathic race of aliens had decided to use earth as the launching point of their nuclear rocket, which would ultimately cause the earth's atmosphere to collapse. To avoid getting spied on by the aliens, the Justice League had decided to hold their strategy meeting inside someone's mind. To avoid suspicion, they decided to use a trained, but not overly trained mind. After several tense days of searching or the right mind, the Martian Manhunter had decided on Robin, who had received some training by the League of Assassins but as a child was unsuspicious enough. Today was the day that the emergency meeting should take place.
The members of the Justice League felt a sort of soft, telepathic pressure inside their heads. They all experienced a brief moment of fatigue and after it passed, they opened their eyes (well inner eyes) to see that they now actually were inside Damian's head. As they looked on, they saw that the outer layer of Damian's mind resembled a desert that surrounded the next layer, an elegant, Arabian palace.
Damian briskly walked towards said palace and pushed the large wooden doors open without further ado. The members of the Justice League followed him with more uncertainty in their steps and they gasped as they saw that the palace was not furnished (as they had expected) but seemed to be merely a facade for a black marble floor that led to a cosy cottage seemingly hanging in the middle of empty air.
Several other floors made from different materials led from other doors to the cottage and Hal murmured: "How many entrances to his mind does this boy have?"
Damian rolled his eyes and snarled: "Alien, please explain to this imbecile what he is seeing."
The Martian Manhunter nearly rolled his eyes at the young boys antics and then explained: "What we see here is the concept of a so-called shared mind. It is quite self explanatory, but I will summarise: The concept includes that multiple people link their minds constantly and intimately and thereby establish a shared mindscape. There are varying stages of intensity from a mind telepathic bind that mostly serves to send each other thoughts consciously to sharing a whole mindscape which leads to a constant and unbreakable telepathic bond which also shares feelings, acquired knowledge, including body language, and unconscious thoughts. From what I see here, I would conclude that we have the finale stage here."
Damian nodded quietly and started walking towards the house, ignoring the shocked Justice League behind him. After a minute, the adults picked up their jaws from the floor and followed him. While they walked, Barry murmured to Hal: "Who would be crazy enough to share their mind with the little demon brat of all people?!"
"I guess we'll find out soon enough", Hal answered quietly and shrugged. Batman glared at them both from behind, himself hiding how upset, he was that he hadn't known about this intimate bond his youngest son shared with an unknown person. During the Justice League’s musings they had crossed the floor and Damian opened the door to the cottage and allowed the Justice League members to walk by him into the apparent living room of the house.
The room was relatively small, in accordance to the outside of the cottage, and filled with several large sofas and beanbags in lively, bright colours and had golden trimmings. The walls were decorated with darker wooden panels, as well as invariantly woven rugs, that depicted famous scenes from earth's history, and a fire crackled in an open fireplace. A staircase descended from above and ended next to a kitchenette and in the centre of the room stood a gigantic fountain that was in enscribed with Arabic letters and from which bubbled glowing green water. Furthermore the fountain was surrounded by fresh earth on which bloomed purple flowers, the little green oasis emitting a strong scent that filled the whole room with sweetness and freshness. The sofas and bean bags were scattered between the fireplace and the water in a sort of controlled chaos. The soft cackling of the fireplace and the patter of the water filled the room and broke the silence that was characteristic for the mind.
"This is very --- homey", Diana complimented reluctantly.
The entire Justice League jumped in surprise as suddenly a voice came from a sofa in front of the fire: "Hey Damian, what are those losers doing here?" They turned around and saw ... a young man- bat lying on the sofa. He had a book in his hands and had apparently been reading before they walked in and now he looked at them with intelligent black- red eyes.
Hal stuttered: "How... where'd you come from?"
The boy grinned and answered slyly: "I walked through the door." As they all (except Damian, of course) continued to stare dumbly, he elaborated: "This is my mindscape too, you know?!"
Batman turned around abruptly to his son: "Robin, what kind of people do you share your mind with?" Robin glared at his father for his tone and snarled: "You shall find out soon enough. They know you're here and therefore they will be here soon."
In amazement the members of the Justice League watched as more and more teenagers popped into existence in the room. An Arabic boy appeared immediately tending to the purple flowers, a girl behind him, who apparently filled a glass with the green water from the fountain. Next were a group of people, who solidified on the sofas and bean bags right next to the fire. The group consisted of two boys and three girls. The boys (one dark - haired with obvious Asian ancestry, one red - haired) sat down on two bean bags next to the man bat's sofa and materialized marshmallows out of thin air. The three girls had apparently decided to act more maturely and turned around to face the League. Seeing the silver- haired girl in the middle, Batman growled: "Calamity!"
"No - Maps, Olive and P.", the Asian girl next to her answered, pointing at the person with the corresponding name.
Olive smiled cheerily and explained: "Calamity and I are separate beings. We share the same body most of the time, but we are definitely not the same person. And ever since Damian talked to her-"
"More like wine and dined her", the red - haired boy injected
"- we have been getting along quite nicely."
"And I am certainly very grateful for that.", another voice chimed in and as the Justice League turned around again, they saw a young woman with silver - white hair, dressed in pilgrims clothes. She seemed to walk on air and a halo of flames surrounded her face as she floated towards the fireplace and passed Damian with a friendly smile.
Behind Damian had silently appeared another red- haired, pale boy who watched the adults with wide, shocked eyes. "Dami", he whisper - shouted: "why is the Justice League standing in our mind palace."
Irritated Batman noticed how the stranger had materialized holding his son's hand and now only clutched it tighter, the contrast between coloured and pale skin almost startling. "Don't stress, Colin, I'm sure my brother will explain in a few. I'm Maya, by the way.", the girl from the fountain said, then stood up and walked towards the fireplace, dragging the Arabic boy with her.
Calamity smiled gently and motioned for everyone to sit down with her around the fireplace. Damian and Colin followed her nudge promptly, the members of the Justice League exchanged uneasy looks and then followed them. Maya passed the glass with the green water inside to Damian and he drank it without complaint.
His eyes glinted dangerously green for a second and Barry blurted out: "What the hell was that stuff?"
Damian answered: "It is essentially water from the Lazarus Pit. My family's close .... connection to the pit and its magic allows me to channel its water into a non- physical form that is available in my mind. It gives me strength and health if in its purest form - though I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else. I also draw my magic from it and that is probably the reason why it works the same way in my mind as on the physical plane." Batman looked at him in shock and stuttered (yes, Batman stuttered): "Y.. You... You're willingly drinking water from the Lazarus Pit... what..."
"Because it keeps me alive and well."
"And anyway, we're not here to discuss Dami's drinking habits. The world has bigger problems right now and will probably always have bigger problems, anyway.", Maya said and thereby started the originally planned discussions.
The discussion had exhausted all of them but it had also brought some things to light for the Justice League. The "kids" had shown surprising insights into all kind of topics and knowledge that was light years beyond their age, but what had really surprised the adults was how close the children were. Most of them had thought that Damian didn't have friends, not even close acquaintances, and he was pretty restrained when around others normally, but around these people he was not. They all (except Calamity) touched more than frequently, sat together closely and took over each other's sentences and ideas more often than not.
Even now Damian, who usually never showed weakness, leaned heavily against Colin, who in turn had sunken into the bean bag they had sat down next to. Calamity smiled at the younger occupants of the room and said quietly: "What do you think about retiring upstairs now before you all fall asleep down here and get muscle pains. Us adults can take the hammocks and this way no one has to worry about not getting a good night's sleep or nightmares in the real world." Everyone nodded and one by one they trotted upstairs.
The first floor was one giant room with large windows that showed a clear night sky with millions of stars scattered in ever changing. On the floor were large mattresses and from the ceiling hung large, rainbow - coloured hammocks. The children changed (though that only involved quickly thinking about wearing different clothes, not any real changing) and all together lay down n the mattresses, as close as possible. They all crawled into the middle of the room and build a giant puppy pile with Damian and Suren at their midst. The members of the Justice League blinked confusedly and tiredly, as usual, but decided not to comment on the closeness. Calamity turned off the lights and climbed in her own hammock. Within minutes everyone in the mindscape was asleep.
The next day the Martian Manhunter had extracted the Justice League from Damian's mind again and everyone had gone their separate ways to solve the problems at hand. But the little retreat had at the very least changed the way the adults looked at him and essentially all other superhero children they know. They (of course) still didn't understand him fully and probably never would , but now they at least knew that he was not the silent, sullen and possibly psychopathic kid that they thought he was, but that he actually had friends that he trusted (and maybe even loved) and that trusted him in return. The trust was so deep and pure that they all actually consented to be constantly with each other and allowed each other to see their souls and mind. Damien's silences, that the Justice League had before misunderstood for arrogance, were now obvious signs that he was listening to one of his friends. His sometimes strange mannerisms were signs of his complicated upbringing and him having a ghost from the pilgrim’s times in his head. And Batman, especially, had learned not to underestimate his child and to never take him as only what he seemed to be. But he also knew that he definitely wouldn't tell Nightwing about his "little brother" sharing his mind with other teenagers in a constant bond. He might be Batman but he wasn't strong enough to take the brunt of that revelation.