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I am not myself, ever.
For the sake of the team, this is the best. It is the way of the Martian to dissolve into a community, tending to say ‘we’ and ‘our’ until it is only him. He was the only one. It is no task for a Martian to shift form. In old traditions, it was a form of flattery among the court. They would imitate the leader to communicate appreciation for their deeds and dedication to the oneness of their society. Martians tended to blend among each other, so it was only the closest friends, lovers, and confidants who knew the minutiae that set them apart. It was thought to be a residual trait from cellular form, where cells would gather to one spot to ambush bigger cells, feigning might they hadn’t yet accrued. Zebras employ a similar technique, as do gangs.
He is one now.
Before the white Martians sought to imperialize Mars, shifting form was a simple intimacy shared as the desert winds fluttered, meeting the durable planes of their skin. He’d look at M'yri'ah until her secondary lids stuttered in their movements across her scarlet eyes. She’d become him and he’d become her as their foreheads touched for both of them to know the depth of each other's love. No such thing exists on earth, though he’d be the first to admit he’d been fooled the first time he’d seen Pride and Prejudice (2005) that perhaps some humans shared one thing with Martians. A few moments later, his gaze averted then returned as he realized no transformation could occur.
Martians prefer the organic in all aspects, but when the genocide came about, they had no choice but to blaspheme in their talk of immutable weapons cursed by the fire god. They petrified themselves in history, breaking, attempting, and dying.
One is a lonely number. One sits at the table, lives at the tower, and walks around. He’d been getting into poetry, and ‘Walking Around’ by Pablo Neruda, a famous poem published in 1935, baffled him as the last puzzle piece baffles the person completing it when it doesn’t fit properly. His mentality was the antithesis of centuries of peaceful glory that lay at the base of prized interactions, both mental and physical, communal and individual. He hadn’t realized that some humans felt fearful of others beyond crime and suffering. The anxiety of going outside and talking met immutable barriers within certain humans. Would they have had an easier time sharing thoughts telepathically?
Though, from what he’s gleaned from the societies he’s pored over pages about, particularly those of Neruda’s time, it would have been to his detriment to know how many truly meant him harm at the hands of a new state, this time run by the dictator, Pinochet. Dark thoughts are like poison on the Martian brain. Safe to say, he has become immune, but so was everyone remaining during the fall of their nation.
He’s felt alone since the White Martian struck his eternal wife down with a laser beam, extinguishing her and looking at him as if she’d not been him more than once. Still, he talks with Bruce, who, surprisingly enough, lets him talk how he wants to talk, which is not at all. Bruce has, over time, learned the subtle art of thinking at him instead of thinking in general. It was equal measures entertaining and funny when Bruce referred to it offhandedly as some sort of hive mind and he indulged in a bit of British humor when he responded, “Not much of a hive anymore.” He frowned his Batman frown in an attempt to cover up his lips twitching upwards. One couldn’t mistake it.
Stewart once told him that if he wanted to shift back, he could. He was free to do whatever he wanted as a citizen with intergalactic rights except to harm others, and his face wasn’t too bad to look at. How could he explain that his original skin was no longer suited to the air and he’d only be able to provide a facsimile of what he was, for J’onn J'onzz was a landless Martian, a rebel who died with his family? So he smiled at him with muscles that were incapable of doing so on Martian cheeks and said, “There is no going back.”
“I will pelt you with filth, I will treat you with contempt and make you a spectacle” (Nahum 3:6)
Martian Manhunter is here, J’onn J’onzz is a mystery, and John Jones is terribly average in all but sleuthing. As inhuman as he is, he will always be a spectacle. The closest match to Green Martian DNA is White Martian DNA, which is why it was a considerable crime for one to imperialize the other. Disruption of genetic harmony and long-standing treaties occurred with the first white foot on coral soil. He has to forgive himself for flinching those first few days after M’gann was discovered. He knows she noticed, reaching out with tendrils that felt as catastrophically fearsome as the Imperium. It had been an irrational fear, he understands that now. Her brain is like a plant cell, rigid and imposing in a way that tends to keep him out. Green Martians have minds like animal cells, amorphous and apt to movement. It makes transferring thoughts a bit more innate of a practice.
Human consciousness varies vastly, but their minds are more like places than conscious things. They make their beds and lie in them, forming compartments and doorways, tunnels and hallways. Humans can slightly shift their minds, sometimes severely, in the case of traumatic events and dramatic life decisions. He takes comfort in looking at people, but he will never take as much comfort as he does burrowing within them, which is nearly never allowed. People are discomfited by the idea of him occupying their minds, which was a definite difference between Martian and Human culture.
Martians believed (believe?) One feels that people belong to themselves, but the space they inhabit is as stolen as one’s land was. They simply occupy a moment, but people can shift away from that moment. Therein lay the problem: humans cannot shift away as Martians can, at least not mentally. People are full of movement. One could argue Martians were too ‘in their heads’ to notice war was upon them, much less defend themselves.
By comparison, humans were made for exploration, especially the ones he knew. Though Batman resides in Gotham, he is certainly nomadic. He is a silent conqueror, striking fear into J’onn in a way the White Martians had to earn after years of aggression. Batman would have been preferred, for at least he had moral scruples worth obeying. Brucie has a similar migratory nature, preferring vacation to work and flings with models worldwide as opposed to relationships back home, which are fraught with tension about the line between Bruce and Batman.
Jon Stewart is a self-explanatory case of human wanderlust. What was once too much for Earth now spread itself across the galaxy. Diana held too great of an affinity for her home planet to let go of it completely, containing her stars to fight the constant crimes plaguing Earth. Themyscira would remain off-limits, protecting itself in her absence. A Martian likely wouldn’t have abandoned his home if his community was at risk. Vaguely, it hurts to acknowledge Diana is a better Human than he is a Martian.
If he could have been a good father and husband, being a good hero wouldn’t have mattered. It would have mattered as much as Martian dust, which he observes on the telescope from time to time to remind him of why he left.
“J’onn. How's the night watch doing ya?”
Hawkgirl’s helmet is mildly impervious to mind reading. Its purpose is to ward off mind control, so he’d have to remove the helmet first, but reading thoughts is like skimming off a fatty layer of bone broth. Her gaze penetrates everywhere she looks, so she’s constantly trapped in the details of what she sees.
From a glance, she’s detected that his eyes are slightly redder, a Martian reaction to an influx of blue light. She also saw the slight discoloration of his under-eye region, blue instead of the customary purple or brown. Most people (read: Clark, John, and Wally) think this is an allergic reaction, as his cheeks have also turned a bit more teal in hue than the rest are familiar with. Even after denying the possibility in casual conversation, they've maintained their doubts and subtly ask him about what foods he’s been eating whenever they’re too busy to join him for lunch. This observation is a consequence of his recent ponderings, which have been more frequent as the anniversary of his kind’s near-total eradication approaches.
He supposes he hasn’t been in his body much as of late, and as such, falters on the upkeep. Martian children had this problem the most, as they were unfamiliar with the boundaries of unbounded mental interactions. Human adolescents have a similar problem with phones and media. While hygiene was easy enough to keep up with, owing to the drier conditions his body is suited to, sleeping and eating presented conflicts in a work-focused schedule. Nothing would be as suited to his tongue as a wet fruit that pushed to take up more of his mouth or a tiny collective of insects that formed hard, cylindrical masses underground. Martians need less sleep, averaging 4 hours of slumber daily. This is negated by Martians' mainly sedentary lifestyle.
Biologically, he’s been overworking himself almost every day since he became Martian Manhunter. While he could whisk the blue tinge away at first, it has since become a futile effort.
“Well, and you?”
“It’s a wonder you still ask.”
Shayera’s bluntness never fails to appear in conversation. There are blunt humans out there, such as Bruce, but given that Batman is a circumstantial identity, his bluntness out of costume is tinged with more warmth than apathy. Her use of words is almost strictly utilitarian or dipped in a sardonic edge. It is innate, present even in her thoughts.
‘J’onn hasn’t been up to par.’ He agrees. He must have let a thought, no, a feeling, slip because she rescinded her words with an image of a great battle sword gleaming, then held clumsily and allowed to rust in the dirt. He wonders if appreciation of weapons is a Thanagarian quality, then chuckles internally imagining Diana without her constant wonder over history’s weapons.
“You’re in your head too often.”
Once, it would have been an average amount. In the early stages of adolescence, Martians reach peak hours of internal submersion, and depending on a Martian’s fortitude, they would maintain this state for a considerable period. To think is to live is to exist is to be recognized.
“I know.”
Martian Manhunter is caught up in the philosophy of the hunt, with J’onn J’onzz lagging behind him. Manhunter knows a preamble intimately, but the exhibition of action in the daily Human routine bores a hole through his skull right next to the shot he would have suffered had the league been less merciful. The world was late in realizing he doesn’t hunt for men, he hunts for companions. The Justice League is a catch almost as satisfying as the one during his life before.
“Get out then. You’ve faced bigger battles than a brain.”
Ah. A cheeky memory of Brainiac comes to the forefront, pulling down on his skin just right, as if to imitate wrinkles.
“So I have.”
“You want me to say it, don’t you?”
‘Sneaky bastard, stop thinking.’
In her mindscape, she grips a dagger poised against his neck. He doesn’t phase out of her grip. The blade is sharpened to the point that he’s paralyzed within her hold. ‘I cannot.’ Her shadowed eyes dare him to voice his internal side of the argument to the outside world.
“Elucidate me.”
‘I won’t fight you today.’
The feeling of a looming weight over his head disappears. She smirks, another battle won for a great warrior. Still, the corners of her lips are limited in their path upwards. Emotions are an unpredictable battleground.
“If you… have trouble getting out of your head because you…miss home, the rest of the league has open space.”
At this, he leans in. This is a battlefield he knows.
“Flash too?”
Flash is prone to asking every type of question, both incredibly astute and partially inane. As a consequence of the speed force, his mind is faster than his body, meaning he has to intentionally slow things down for complete comprehension. The downside of this process is that many of the thoughts are surface level, and therefore take up a good chunk of the information he gathers. While almost miraculous during times of crisis, he can only take in so many numerical values and schematics before getting off track.
“Some more space than others.”
“And you?”
He needn’t extend a hand, he knows. It is more likely to be rejected than accepted. But she clasps his hand, a sure sign of brotherhood. From beneath her mask, he can envision eyes as green as his skin. They’re shrouded in white when they stare at his facsimile of a face.
Shayera whispers, “You know me.”
‘Get better for tomorrow.’
Her wings, as always, don’t drag from the great height she holds them at. Each feather-light step disappears until she’s gone.
Out of sight, out of mind.