Two Strangers #134

'That guy is an idiot... but I can't let him keep wasting my time...' I mused, rubbing the back of my neck as I remotely accessed my bunker controls and opened the gate to go inside.

The idiot in mind was agent Harlow. Despite being as dumb as rocks, the man was a menace, just like a cockroach that doesn't know when to quit, and he kept harassing me, achieving nothing but wasting my goddamned time.

He'd already called me to question me three times now, and every time I'd leave a petrified, speechless mess, but he didn't seem to get the hint and was still intent on making me look guilty.

'Yeah, time to get rid of the bastard...' I concluded as I walked inside, looking forward to some me time away from idiots, but it was not meant to be, it seems.

I halted my steps and sighed as I noticed the pointy-eared, shadowed figure standing in the middle of my bunker, blankly staring at me with two white shining orbs.

"For fuck's sake..." I said, sighing as I rubbed my forehead. "Of course, you'd know about the bunker and somehow get in without setting the alarms because why the fuck wouldn't you?" I went on, my eyes twitching in annoyance, and the figure seemed unphased by my outburst.

"Fucking boundaries, man! Ever heard of them?! Knock for once in your life!" I continued shouting obscenities while the figure remained still, taking it all in, his gaze growing more and more judgmental by the second.

I felt like an idiot standing and shouting at a figurative wall, but it was worth it as it bought me enough time to scan the bunker to see if anyone else was present.

"Well, get on with it. What do you want?" I said after a second to calm myself, sighing in exhaustion as I looked at the figure's still unfazed appearance.

"You're a ticking time bomb, a loose canon..." the figure, Batman, blankly said, still rooted in place like a statue, and I was ready to take out my steel wire and throw hands at the prospect of a lecture after dealing with agent dumbass all day.

"You need help," the caped crusader added, and I detected a hint of sympathy in his tone, unlike his usually demanding, cold one, causing me to freeze for a second.

"And who's going to help me, huh? You?" I mockingly asked, scowling at the very notion. "The same way you helped The Penguin? Clue Master? Harvey Dent? No thanks," I asked, dismissively waving him off.

"No, I can't help you..." Batman said as he understood the meaning of my words but didn't bother to comment on them. "That's why I brought a friend..." he added, turning to a dark corner of the bunker, and a dark-skinned, bald man in a black suit walked out of the shadows.

"This is--" Batman said, trying to introduce the man. However, I quickly cut him off as I immediately recognized the latter, not by appearance, but by the ability to remain undetected and unseen by the cameras and motion sensors.

"John Jones. Detective by day, superhero by night, the heart and soul of the justice league..." I said as I looked at the man, raising my guard and preparing to fight, even if such a thing was pointless as any alternative would be even more so.

"The Martian Manhunter, The strongest creature and most powerful telepath on the planet... do I need to keep going?" I concluded, narrowing my eyes at the dark-skinned man in warning.

"Batman told me you were rather well informed..." The man said, his skin turning green and features taking a more alien shape as he slightly raised an eyebrow.

"But this is still surprising," he added, adjusting the red tie around his neck to accommodate his now changed neck proportions, not sounding surprised at all.

"J'onn, as you stated, is the most powerful telepath on the planet and one of the foremost experts on the human mind," Batman said, similarly unphased by my knowledge of the martian's identity. "If he can't help you, no one can," he added, the meaning behind his words clear as the sun.

He was basically saying that I'd be a lost cause if even the Martian Manhunter couldn't help me, meaning I'd end up as a villain, and everyone knows what Batman does to villains.

In other words, shut your mouth and accept the help, or I'll be breathing down your neck for the rest of my life until I catch you lacking, and when you do, well, it goes without saying.

"I don't appreciate being threatened in my own home, Bruce Wayne," I said, frowning at the caped crusader's words. "I'm not fucking afraid of you," I said, retrieving my steel wire from my inventory and gripping it tightly.

"We agreed you'd let me do this my way, Bruce," J'onn calmly said as he stood between Batman and myself, giving the former a firm look, to which he grunted.

"Fine. I will take my leave then," Batman said as he turned to leave, and there were no windows, distractions, or blind spots he'd used to vanish like he usually does.

I watched him walk away and exit my hideout the same any regular human would with no small amount of pleasure before turning to face the martian telepath.

"I am not here to make threats, child, nor to envenom you. I only wish to help," J'onn remarked as he walked towards a chair and stopped. "May I?" he asked, pointing towards the chair, and I sighed as I gestured for him to take a seat.

Only a first-class asshole would slap someone kindly smiling at him in the face, and I hadn't reached that degree yet.

"Do you know why I risk my life to protect this planet, even if it's not my own?" J'onn asked as he watched me sit on the couch opposite him, his smile growing more pronounced as he briefly closed his eyes.

The hideout suddenly turned dark, and the surroundings changed into that of deep space with stars glittering overhead, causing me to stand up from the couch that seemed to be floating in the void in alarm.

"Do not be alarmed. It is a mere telepathic illusion. I didn't intrude on your mind to create it," J'onn explained, getting off the chair and standing beside me.

"It's beautiful, is it not?" J'onn said as he slowly looked down, and I unconsciously did the same, my eyes widening at the blue and green planet below my feet.

"It almost reminds me of home, of Mars..." he added, and the scenery changed into an equally beautiful but different planet that I assumed was Mars, J'onn's home.

"Before it was ravaged..." he continued, heaving a tired sigh as the planet's surface rapidly changed, turning into a wasteland at an alarming rate.

"I don't think most humans understand how precious this planet is..." J'onn remarked as the scenery turned back to Earth, zooming in on construction machines destroying forests and moving on to mines and other profitable sources of pollution.

"You are no different from most in that regard, yet you still desire to protect this world, to make it a better place," he added as the scenery turned back to Earth.

I found how he emphasized 'this world' to be very concerning, but I didn't comment on it, hoping it was simply my imagination and paranoia at work here.

"And I suppose you got that from what I said to the journalists?" I asked, my eyes warily narrowing at the telepathic martian, growing suspicious of his words about not intruding on my mind.

"I did not intrude on your mind, nor do I have the intention to..." J'onn said, smiling as he shook his head. "My understanding of your desire to protect this world comes from watching your actions from the second you arrived here..." he explained, and my brain ceased functioning for a second at his words.

"You see, you and I are not that different. Both strangers in a foreign world that we made into our own," J'onn concluded, going silent to give me the time I needed to calm down.

"How... how do you know? Do you know what brought me here? What for?" I started firing questions as soon as I gathered my bearing, curiosity, and confusion getting the better of me.

J'onn's words insinuated that he might know every dark secret I had, the people I killed and harmed, the crimes I've committed, and everything in between, but I couldn't care.

All that mattered to me was getting answers at the time for the questions plaguing my mind since waking in that damned dark alley, covered in trash and blood.

...

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