[ EPISODE 7: DENIAL ]

BELAY — Securing the rope while your partner climbs. You'll have a belay device that provides friction to the rope system—if your partner falls, the device will lock itself or help you support their weight.

CHAPTER SEVEN

IT FELT LIKE WALKING THROUGH A DREAM.

Stalking through endless expanse of snow, white-capped mountains and nothing for miles, JJ couldn't stop her mind from drifting as she dug a hand through the powdery snow in the ground and watched the ice melt in her palm. JJ couldn't remember the last time she'd seen snow—real snow, piled up high and soft as feathers, not that grim city sludge smeared across Gotham during the winter months when the first snow made contact with the eternally filthy streets—nor could she recall the last time she'd felt that sense of childlike wonder, that sparkling magic of bearing witness to something for the first time. Couldn't remember feeling anything before the Incident. But as she scooped up a handful of snow and marvelled at the puddle of slush melting in her fingers, something light began to glow in her chest. Over and over, JJ stooped low and crushed the snow in her hands, forming them into haphazard balls and just watching it fall through her fingers.

Every once in awhile, Kaldur would glance over at JJ, and though he said nothing, the slight twist of his lips betrayed his muted mirth. JJ hadn't noticed, though, too occupied with the fundamental shifting of parameters in her brain. Magic had been the stuff of birthday parties and cons, until now, and she couldn't wait to get home and tell Olivia everything.

At one point, M'gann had begun to play, too, telekinetically lifting a pile of snow into the air and letting it fall around JJ, a full, white Christmas episode, perhaps something she'd seen on Hello, Megan! in her childhood. At the risk of falling over, JJ craned her neck and tilted her head back, letting the illusion wash over her, the fake snow catching in her dark hair, melting into her scalp. She touched a hand to her head, and her hands came away dry, her hair unaffected. JJ nearly laughed.

They trekked together in silence, saying nothing except to give directions, and though Artemis and Wally were potentially facing some kind of death trap, JJ felt nothing but a strange sense of calm, insulated against the potential death traps laying in wait ahead. None of this was real. Even though they stood in a tundra, wandering through the knee-deep snow for what felt like an eternity, they felt nothing besides a phantom chill, the occasional gust of wind tugging at their clothes and hair. The acute sense of urgency with all their missions was missing, largely due in part to the fact that there didn't seem to be any way out of this place, and yet, nothing could hurt them. Maybe the first few minutes they spent moving through the tundra, they'd been on high alert, but after awhile it'd been clear that there was no threat out here, nothing that would jump out and snap their jaws around their appendages.

Sure enough, JJ's intuition was right. Although, this time, when they stepped through the door that seemed to have opened up out of thin air, the world was—once again—oriented differently, and JJ felt the gravitational pull just as she, along with Superboy and Aqualad, fell through the doorway. Granted, before she hit the hard ground, Aqualad had mercifully caught her, whilst on his knees. Even under her weight, he barely wavered, merely giving her a glancing once-over to ensure she was fine, as if she were made of porcelain—ever the gentleman. Meanwhile, M'gann floated gracefully down, landing on her feet. Artemis sprinted over, relief splashed across her features.

Instantly, JJ pushed off against Aqualad to stand, and surveyed her surroundings. On the landing that they'd been dumped onto, hung a massive, golden bell etched with strange markings. Wally and Kent Nelson stood before it. Around them, a network of stairs spread upward and outward in an isotropic manner. JJ peered over the edge of the landing, and while she'd never done psychedelics—or any sort of drug for that matter—she expected that this paralleled the experience of being high and hallucinating. She couldn't see the bottom of the tower, but she also couldn't be sure if she was standing perpendicular to the real ground, or if she was some other orientation. While she wasn't so easily broken, JJ was still of mortal mind. Which was to say that this labyrinth of stairs, the interior of this structure—if she could call it one at all—essentially bent all the laws of physics into a balloon animal. But there was no time to wrap her head around how gravity worked in this chamber as a bolt of white-hot light cleaved through the air, scorching the platform they'd landed on. Immediately, JJ tapped her fists together and an energy shield expanded around herself and the team, hoping this would buy them some time.

"God bless," Artemis breathed, sending JJ a grin.

"Who the hell are those guys?" JJ hissed.

"Aba Kadabra and Klarion," Aqualad said, his tone severe. "The former uses science to simulate magic, but the latter..."

Something clicked then. The name Klarion struck a familiar chord in her. JJ scowled.

On the opposite platform, oriented perpendicular to theirs, stood their attackers. One of them wielded a trick wand, and his white dress shirt was loose around his body, unbuttoned to his navel like a cheap pirate porno. The other was a scrawny, goblin-like caricature of a man, who JJ knew was Klarion, Lord of Chaos, practically a trickster god. A long time ago, her parents had fought him, and barely returned alive. JJ didn't want to say it, especially when they were under direct fire, but both of them—Lord of Chaos or not—looked as though they'd stepped out of a cheap costume store. If it weren't for the fact that Aba Kadabra was slinging bolts of electricity at them without relent, shooting to kill, she wouldn't have been able to take either of them seriously. Especially since old school magic was their whole gimmick.

Another bolt struck the dome of JJ's shield and pain erupted in her chest, as if she'd been pumped with a thousand volts of electricity. The shield flickered, but JJ fought against the pain and held on. Beyond the dome, Wally and Nelson approached the bell. Without hesitation, Nelson struck his cane against it, and the resonant sound echoed through the tower. For a moment, JJ felt feverish, as if she were stuck in a dream. Until the bell began to glow, light radiating outward. JJ watched as Wally and Nelson disappeared through the radiance.

Along with Klarion, who dove in through the portal at the last second.

"Wally and Nelson can handle themselves," Aqualad said, authority suffusing his tone, his piercing gaze dissecting the battlefield. Left alone with Ava Kadavra, they were on better grounds for a counter-attack. "We need a plan of action. JJ, when I tell you to, you drop the shield. Artemis, I need you and Superboy to distract Aba Kadabra with everything you've got—neutralise the threat. M'gann, try to contact Wally if you can."

"Yes, cap," JJ gritted out, sweat dripping from her temples as she fought for every modicum of control in her body, fought for every shred of energy left in her. The blows kept coming, bolts of lightning arcing from the tip of Aba Kadabra's dollar-store magic wand and slamming into JJ's shield dome.

Each hit sent a jarring spark of pain up JJ's sternum, and as the shield flickered, Aba Kadabra seemed to realise that every object had its breaking point. He switched tactics. This time, he targeted one small point in the shield, striking over and over and over at it. To JJ's horror, a crack begun to snake down toward the edge of the dome, fissures spreading across the top of the energy shield. Inside her, JJ felt the cracks, too, felt her muscles splintering to pieces, held together only by sheer force of will.

"Kaldur, she can't hold it any longer!" M'gann cried, worry flickering over her face.

"I'm fine," JJ hissed, flinching as another bolt of lightning cracked over the dome like a whip. More cracks spiderwebbed over the shield, and JJ considered her options. Already, she was nearing her tether, could feel the longer she was under fire, the more her strength was burning out. She was running on fumes, and forming another shield, using her ability in any capacity, was out of the question. What was left under all of that were her fists.

Kaldur narrowed his eyes, waiting for a window. Aba Kadabra drew his arm back, winding up for another strike.

"JJ, drop it!"

As soon as JJ let go of the shield, Kaldur launched himself at her and tackled her out of the way of the lightning lashing down upon where she once stood. Braced for the impact, JJ squeezed her eyes shut, expecting to hit the ground hard, but when her spine made contact with the ground, knocking the wind from her lungs, she found Kaldur's large hand cupping the back of her head. When her eyes snapped open, the world come crackling back into focus, Kaldur was frowning down at her, grey eyes gleaming with concern. JJ blinked.

"Thanks," JJ grunted, the word a foreign taste in her mouth.

"Are you alright?" Kaldur asked, urgency tinging his tone. Ever the gentleman, he helped her to her feet, muscular arms braced around her shoulders as he glanced backward to where the others were holding their own against Aba Kadabra.

Armed with a crossbow, Artemis fired her arrows on Aba Kadabra, teeth bared and without mercy. With Aba Kadabra distracted on one front, Conner slammed into his exposed back, forcing him to his knees. M'gann, arms outstretched, kept him down, invisible ropes bearing down on him, lashing him to the ground.

Scowling, JJ nodded, starting toward the heat of the fight. "Let's kill this clown and go home."

Before she could take off, Kaldur's callused hand wrapped around her elbow, anchoring her in place. His frown deepened as he appraised her. "You know we can't do that."

"Why not?" JJ asked, exasperated, jabbing a finger toward the loose cannon of a cosplay magician. "He'd kill us if we let our guard down without thinking twice. Neutralise him—wasn't that what you said? We take his head back to Red Tornado. Send the villains a message."

"I meant incapacitate him, knock him unconscious, put him in a state where we can take him back for questioning," Kaldur said, glaring down at JJ now, the grip on her elbow tightening with a sort of desperation. JJ rolled her eyes, and tried to wrench herself away from him, but Kaldur didn't budge. No matter how much resistance she put up, Kaldur didn't let go, didn't let his vice grip on her falter for a moment. Instead, he tugged her back round, put himself between the others and JJ, and the steel in his glower clashed with her stone-faced look of impassivity. "We don't kill, JJ, I mean that. Tell me you understand."

They were chest-to-chest now, neither willing to back down on their stance, JJ breathing hard, nostrils flaring with impatience, irritation blazing under her skin. Kaldur stared her down, unmoving and unmoved. Stubborn as she was, JJ did just want to go home and sleep for another ten years, as she always did after a mission. Kaldur wanted reassurance that she wasn't going to go rogue.

"Fine," JJ snapped, savagely, struggling to keep her cool, "fine, I won't kill him. Can we go? We're wasting time, fishboy."

Finally, finally, the edge of something serrated glinted in Kaldur's uncrackable composure, something that resembled resentment crossing his expression like a shadow. But it was gone in the next moment, dissolved between blinks. Internally, JJ smirked, revelling in the triumph that she'd managed to put a dent in the diplomatic exterior, strip it down to what it purely was: a pretence. Kaldur dropped her arm as if she were something poisonous, disdain tugging at the corner of his lips.

"Let's go."

They took him down without killing him.

They didn't get Klarion, though, who'd apparently slipped away into some dark corner of the ether.

They did, however, obtain this sick helmet that gleamed like a Greek myth. 

JJ wanted to say that she didn't care, that this was just another mission to file away in the resumé she was building, but a small part of her couldn't understand why. The world wasn't divided into good and bad people, but in this line of work she saw three categories: the people who could kill her without batting an eye, the people who stopped them, and the people who didn't deserve any of it. JJ didn't know which one she'd categorise herself in now that she was running with people who belonged in the second box, but she knew that she'd grown up as the third. If only someone had killed the Joker first. If only someone had shot him in the head before he'd blown up both her parents. If only someone had done whatever it took to stop him before he could blow up her life.

Aboard the Bioship, JJ talked to none of her teammates throughout the ride home. Sat across the cabin, Kaldur had tried to catch her eye a couple times, a shadow of conflict flickering across his stone-cut face, but JJ had only crossed her legs in her seat and turned toward the window. Could she die for this cause? Could she martyr herself for the good of the world? Could she override survival instinct and scale it down to preserve life?

Was she cut out to be good?

In the reflection of the glass, JJ found M'gann staring at her, concern furling her brow.

What, JJ thought, flatly, not quite sure why she was engaging M'gann in conversation in the first place.

I'm so sorry, JJ, I don't mean to intrude, and I really, really didn't mean to read your mind—sometimes the stronger thoughts just come flying at me, and I can't help but overhear them, but I swear I wasn't eavesdropping—

What do you think? JJ interjected, cutting M'gann's nervous telepathic rambling. Still simmering, she couldn't keep the irritation from her mental tone. How is it that he's allowed to want to kill us—fully knowing we're kids—but we're not even allowed to think about it? How is it that he's literally striking to kill, and we have to go about it with honour or whatever Kaldur's fucking high on all the time.

Kaldur has a code, M'gann informed, gently. Personally, I struggled with this, too, when I first started with the team.

You? JJ scoffed, unable to help herself, disbelief misting her thoughts. She nearly laughed aloud at the absurdity of this juxtaposition between M'gann's sweet personality and the idea that she could harm a fly, but covered it with a cough. Beside her, Artemis slanted her a questioning look, but JJ ignored it.

Yeah, M'gann mused, sheepishly. I dropped a... a boulder on top of someone. Turned out to be a robot, so I didn't actually kill a person, thankfully, but I was... everyone was pretty mad at me for awhile. Point was, I wasn't thinking about anything beyond saving my friends' lives, but that in itself doesn't count toward much good unless I also try to save the bad guys. The difference between us and them... it can be thin. We're all people, at the end of the day—well, as human as this Earth allows us to be. But Kaldur's right. We can't kill them, otherwise we're no better.

But what if I don't care to be better? JJ tore a flake of skin off a callus on her finger. What if I just want to go home?

M'gann glanced over at her again, her bottom lip snagged between her teeth.

You don't actually think that, do you? M'gann asked, a tinge of worry ruffling her tone.

JJ didn't say anything after that. Instead, she focused her thoughts on the Youtube video of the IFSC competition she'd practically memorised, effectively blocking M'gann out. That's what she got, she supposed, for letting someone in like this. She wondered what Robin would say.

When they got back to base, the others lingered in the main room, debriefing Red Tornado on the mission's details. Wally and Artemis stood on either side of the android, regaling him with a full, painted picture—sound-effects contributed by Wally—of the mission, including what'd happened in the tower before the others had arrived. M'gann joined them. Arms folded over his broad chest, Conner stood off to the side, not quite participating in the enthusiastic recall, but watching M'gann from the corner of his eye. Meanwhile, Kaldur questioned Wally on the helmet clutched in his hands.

Quietly, with no one to notice her absence, JJ stalked off toward the locker room to change out, unable to shake the unsettled feeling weighing in her chest.

When she was finally showered and changed into a pair of blue sweatpants and a fitted white tank top, having sent off a quick text to Olivia to guarantee her, JJ exited the locker room. Her combat boots had been swapped out for a pair of her favourite high-tops converse, white to match her top, and they squeaked against the polished floor. As she rounded the corner, distractedly plugging her wired earphones into her phone, she ran straight into a solid body.

JJ stumbled back, her phone clattering to the ground as she cursed violently. With a heated glower, she slanted her gaze upward.

And met Kaldur's stone-faced glare. He, too, had changed out into civilian clothing—a navy blue hoodie over a pair of loose-fitted basketball shorts. JJ caught a sharp whiff of sea salt and bergamot, his scent washing over the space between them. In the lighthouse of his drowning stare, JJ felt like the rock-face of a cliff, the turbulent waves chipping persistently away at her exterior, vehement and ceaseless beneath the storm.

For a moment, neither of them said anything, neither of them relenting, the silence electric, snapping tension in the thick air.

Rolling her eyes, JJ shouldered past him, not in the mood to play a game of chicken with a boy. As her shoulder brushed pointedly against his, his rough hand shot out to grab her wrist, stopping her in her tracks.

"Why are you here?" Kaldur asked, his voice devoid of any compassion he'd offered her earlier.

JJ fixed him with a steel-bladed look that could've cleaved any of her climbing teammates to the bone, gotten them to back off. But Kaldur wasn't made of the same flesh and bone as them. He held onto her wrist, his vice grip tight enough to prevent her from slipping away, but not enough to leave a mark or even hurt her.

"In this job," he said, slate grey eyes boring into hers with weighted intent, his deep voice roiling over her like thunder, "there are lines we don't cross. We don't kill people because it's not up to us who gets to live or die. Justice is better served when they're behind bars, doing their time in rehabilitation. If we kill them, we make them martyrs to their cause. There will always be evil in this world, an did you kill one of them, someone worse could come along to fill the power vacuum. This is how we keep the balance. So, let me ask you again—why are you here, JJ?"

Jaw clenched, JJ let out a slow exhale, fixing Kaldur with a searing look. "I don't have to tell you."

"No," Kaldur said, eyes darkening in frustration, "but you owe it to yourself to find the answer, and you better do it quick. I won't let you put this team in jeopardy."

Hot rage splashed against her chest, and she ripped her hand out of his grip with more force than required.

"There is nothing wrong," JJ gritted out, stepping out of his reach quickly, unable to stand the proximity for another second, "with wanting to go home in one piece, and doing whatever it takes to make it back to the people who're waiting for my return. I don't know you, and you don't know me, so don't tell me about what I owe to myself, and don't lecture me on morality. You don't know a fucking thing."

Annoyance flashed across Kaldur's face, grey eyes gleaming. For all her worth, JJ knew she could keep pressing and pressing and pressing on the sore points she could find, every groove in his composure, every weakness, she could leverage just to gain another on him. But at the end of the day, as much poison as she packed into her words, he was right. JJ just hated admitting anything if it meant having to rebuild her inner sanctuary from scratch to accommodate for anything more than climbing and school. Thinking about anything more required her to shift her singular focus, expand it. That, in itself was dangerous. There were things she purposefully shut out to keep her world intact, and if she wasn't careful, she'd let them back in, and any modicum of control she had, she'd lose.

Before he could retaliate, she picked her phone off the floor and walked away.

It was Artemis who caught her at Zeta tubes. And for the first time, JJ saw Artemis' face without the green mask. Out of her green archer's uniform, the image wasn't so much jarring as pleasantly surprising. With flawless skin, almond eyes and pouty lips, Artemis was pretty—very pretty. And distinctly wasian, JJ thought, mildly stunned by the observation, just like her. She hadn't expected that, for some reason. Probably because of how much she looked like the female version of a younger Green Arrow in uniform.

"Hey," Artemis said, the lightness in her raspy voice a relief to JJ's ears. Artemis readjusted her grip on her backpack, bleach-blonde hair gleaming silver beneath the light. "Do you like boba?"

JJ tugged her earphones out, cutting off the pop punk song drumming against her ears with as much vigour as the anger still simmering in her blood. "What?"

"Do you like boba?" Artemis repeated, lifting a brow.

JJ blinked. "Um. Yeah?"

"Great," Artemis said, grinning, obviously pleased. "There's this shop in Star City, it's my favourite—"

"I live in Gotham," JJ pointed out.

"The Zeta tubes can take you there," Artemis said, flippantly waving off JJ's concerns. "Give me your number, I'll text you the address. What are you doing this weekend?"

Later, much later, JJ wouldn't know what would possess her to comply, to deviate from her path of getting through this fragile appearance of getting along with the Team to appease Olivia, and exchange cell phone numbers with Artemis with a tentative agreement to hang out on Saturday at her favourite boba shop. Was this friendship? JJ didn't quite know what to call it. Were these people her acquaintances or her colleagues? Both terms didn't fit the conditions of their relationship. Calling them her team didn't sound right either, considering she was hardly assimilated amidst their easy dynamic. JJ had always been good at drawing lines in the sand, had always been firm with boundaries and keeping the world at arm's length, and she'd forgotten how stuff like this worked. But this was the first time in awhile that JJ had said 'yes' to something because she wanted to, and not because she was coerced into socialising.

Just then, Wally sauntered up to them, backpack in hand, and M'gann at his side, engaged in conversation.

"You guys are getting boba?" Wally asked, eyes gleaming as he butted in between them, arms slung over both JJ and Artemis' shoulders. "Can I come?"

Artemis made a sound of disgust, planted one hand over his face and shoved him off them. Wally let out a shriek as he toppled over backwards, much to JJ's mirth. "Girls only."

"Yeah," JJ said, pointedly looking at M'gann. "Wanna come with us?"

"Yes!" M'gann's expression lit up with pure joy. "What's boba?"

Artemis and JJ shared a knowing smirk.

"Well," Artemis said, patting M'gann on the head. "Looks like it's baby's first boba trip on Saturday, then."

"I can't believe this," Wally grumbled miserably from the floor. "I love boba."

Later, when JJ arrived home, shucking off her shoes and calling out a garbled greeting, Olivia was stress baking again, whipping up a storm in the kitchen, all eight arms extended, moving in a blur as she whisked egg yolks and measured out ingredients. A fine coating of flour dusted her cheek, and she only lifted her head from her intense baking to make an unintelligible sound that JJ interpreted as a response to her greeting. The smell of sugar and full fat milk drifted through the apartment.

Too tired from the mission to do much else but become a slug for the rest of the evening, JJ dumped her duffle bag on the floor and flopped onto the couch. She threw an arm over her eyes and let out a breath, waves of fatigue washing over her. A thousand thoughts swarmed her mind, but she shut them all out. Shut out Kaldur's question, Artemis' offer, and M'gann's concern. All she wanted to do was sleep for the next twenty hours.

JJ felt Olivia's presence looming over her before she could even say anything.

With her arm still thrown over her closed eyes, JJ grunted. "What."

"I need your help," Olivia said, her tone grave.

JJ lifted her arm off her face and cracked an eye open.

Olivia held up two identical bags of pink frosting. "I'm doing a gender reveal cake for a client. It's a girl, obviously, but I'm torn between the shade of pink. Should I go with cotton candy pink, or this peach pink?"

Not quite knowing the difference between either of the two, but also knowing that Olivia would work herself into a neurotic spiral trying to decide between the two, a lá deep-seeded perfectionism, JJ said, "I will kill myself if it's not the peach pink."

"Amazing!" Olivia said. In a puff of sugar and flour, she zipped off toward the kitchen to resume her baking. 

JJ rolled her eyes.

"Tough day?" Olivia asked, her voice drifting across the space from the kitchen. There wasn't much that escaped Olivia's notice—especially when it came to JJ, who'd spent her entire life under Olivia's watchful eye. She must've glimpsed the tightness in JJ's face, the lingering conflict of today still etched into her skin. To someone on the outside of their bond, to someone who hadn't spent their whole lives with her trying to read between the lines of her face, the micro-differences between JJ's plethora of stoic expressions was practically illegible. Olivia could read JJ, though. Could always decipher between the changes between micro-expressions. Could always get to the soft tissue of the problem beneath the stone mask without having to drag it out of her.

And maybe something in the cracks between JJ's composure betrayed just how convoluted her internal workings were today.

"I'm fine," JJ said, purse-mouthed and glaring at the ceiling. "I... I think I have plans this weekend?"

A loud crash resonated from the kitchen, but the commotion seemed to glance off JJ's skin as if she were made of marble, unbothered and unmoving. Olivia cleared her throat as she emerged from the kitchen into the living room and hovered over JJ, her eyes glimmering with curiosity, and her body and her many-sprouted limbs, each holding some kind of utensil or covered in gloves, practically vibrating with barely restrained excitement.

"With who? Don't tell me you're talking about training—those don't count as plans, those are commitments—"

JJ shot Olivia a bemused look. "Just a couple girls from the team."

Lighting up, Olivia squealed, two free hands snatching JJ into a tight embrace. "That's so exciting! Who are these friends? Where are you going? Do you need me to drive? I'll see if I can clear up some time on the schedule—wait, no, it's fine, I'll rejig some stuff—"

"I can take the bus, Liv," JJ said, her voice muffled by Olivia's arms. "I'll be fine on my own."

Olivia let out a melodramatic groan. "I hate when you say that. You're my baby sister. I can't let anything happen to you."

For the thousandth time today, JJ rolled her eyes.

AUTHOR'S NOTE.
take a shot everytime JJ says "i'm fine." :)

AND YESSS I KNOW I KNOW MORE THAN A YEAR AGO I SAID YOU'D GET THIS PART "SOON" AND YET....

anyway look!!!! i'm starting to integrate JJ into the team more and more — and her dynamics with each individual member of the team 🫶 i'm definitely going to explore them more in depth in the coming chapters so!!!