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J’onn doesn't like this.

He doesn't like any of this. He doesn't like the fact that an innocent woman died in his arms, murdered by her own husband, a man they thought they could trust. He doesn’t like the fact that the Justice League, the closest thing he has to a home on this planet, had fallen for the deception of a Thanagarian spy they had thought to be Carter Hall Jr., the son of the original Hawkman. He certainly doesn’t like the look in Max’s eyes, as he finishes explaining the whole sorry situation to him - not a look of horror, or of mourning, but the narrowed gaze of a man with a problem to solve. 

“It explains a lot,” Max admits. “Such as him always sneering, telling us the JLI wasn’t as good as the JLA his father helped form…” 

The idea that their League wasn’t as good as the original Justice League of America was one that had always gotten under Max’s skin, and he hadn’t been fond of the new Hawkman for that exact reason. J’onn had felt similarly; he may not have gotten riled up in the same way Max did, waving his arms around animatedly as he listed off the JLI’s many accomplishments while hurling every insult under the sun at their hawkish teammate - “Can you believe him, J’onn? What a smug, self-righteous bastard!” -  but he found the whole attitude to be extremely disrespectful and uncalled for considering that the League were risking their lives on a daily basis to protect the world. In hindsight, it made perfect sense that the Hawkman who’d joined the League was an imposter. Carter Hall had been a good man; J’onn doubts he would’ve raised his son to be so arrogant.

“Tell me, J’onn - how many others know about all this?”

“Just Amanda Waller.”

Amanda had been the only other direct witness to Sharon Parker’s death, and had been just as horrified as he was as they watched Sharon fade away in front of their eyes. As she’d left the Embassy to convene with the others regarding the Dominator Invasion, J’onn, for the first time, saw past Amanda Waller’s steely exterior, and caught a glimpse of something he hadn’t been quite sure the woman known as the Wall was even capable of feeling - fear. There was a faraway look in her eyes, a stark contrast to the sharp and focused gaze he was used to seeing from her, and it seemed that this moment was going to linger with her for quite some time.

It was certainly going to linger with him.

He could still feel the weight of Sharon’s limp, lifeless body in his arms.

But now the Invasion was over, and it left up to J’onn and Max - now having recovered from his Gene-Bomb induced illness - to figure out how to deal with what J’onn had witnessed in Australia.

Standing across from Max’s desk, J’onn wraps his cape around himself almost defensively, like a child’s security blanket. Max meanwhile sits with his legs propped up on the table, carrying himself in such a nonchalant manner that an outsider observer would surely assume they were discussing something as mundane as balancing that week’s budget, and not the fact that a member of the Justice League had just been murdered by her partner.

“I can handle Amanda,” he announces breezily as he pulls a cigar from his seemingly endless supply, deftly lighting it before quickly pocketing the Zippo, acutely aware of just how much the open flame unsettles J'onn. “I think the fewer who know about this, the better. The public always sort of thought this was the original Hawkman. The truth would just sully a great tradition. It would also make us look bad.”

That was the heart of the matter, wasn’t it? PR. As much as J’onn hated to play the public relations game, he was also more aware than anyone of how fragile the League’s standing with the general populace was. As he’d once told Ted, to the average person they were novelties, sideshow freaks - viewed with amusement one moment, reviled the next. In this age of heightened media scrutiny, all it would take was one piece of bad publicity to ruin their standing with the very people they had sworn to protect. Not to mention the added consideration of their UN sponsorship which could be just as easily revoked as it had been given. The Justice League was the closest thing to a family J’onn had left, and he would not let his family fall apart. Not again. 

But still, there was a line, wasn’t there? This wasn’t just downplaying Booster and Beetle’s latest get-rich-quick scheme or pretending that yet another tussle between Bea and Guy hadn’t happened. This was covering up a murder. Surely there were lines he wouldn’t cross, not for anything, not even for the League.

Surely.

He folds his arms, visibly uncomfortable. “I don’t like it, Max.”

By this point, Max is leaning forward, the casual affect replaced with something more business-like. Listen to me, he says with his eyes.

“One of the first questions they’re bound to ask will be hey, why didn’t the Martian Manhunter just do a mental probe when the guy first turned up, gotten the dope on him? They won’t appreciate, as I do, that your sense of ethics keeps you from doing it!”

The thing is, J’onn can recognise Max’s snake oil salesman shtick from a mile away. He can tell exactly when Max is schmoozing, sweet-talking, blowing smoke up one’s ass. There’s a shift in his demeanor that most might not notice, but that J’onn, who knows Max better than just about anybody, who’s seen Max at his most earnest, with all layers of performance stripped away, picks up on immediately. He knows exactly what Max is trying to do here, can see right through his attempt at manipulation, at stroking J’onn’s ego - oh, I know how morally superior you are, but they wouldn’t get it. Don’t worry, you’re not compromising your precious ethics! Really, it’s their fault for not understanding - not like I do. 

He can see right through it , is the thing . Yet he still falls for it hook, line and sinker. He hates how easy it is, how firmly Max has him wrapped around his finger.

“I think I’m getting one of my headaches.” 

He folds his arms and turns away, but really, he and Max both know that he’s not going to put up a meaningful fight. Max already has him right where he wants him - J’onn just needs to put on a pantomime of disapproval to make himself feel a bit less complicit. 

It leaves him wondering, not for the first time, when exactly Max started to have so much sway over him and, more importantly, why he allowed it to happen. Did it all trace back to the day in the hospital, when he first touched Max’s mind? He thinks back on it often, the day when he saw Max’s entire life laid bare in front of him, every detail, the good and the bad, the sentimental and the sordid. He hadn’t meant to look so deeply - he’d just wanted to gauge how trustworthy Max was after the incident with Metron’s computer. But it was as though Max’s subsconscious was a riptide, pulling him into the undertow, and when J’onn re-surfaced, his perspective on Max was completely altered. He saw this man, this flawed, driven, painfully human man - and maybe, just maybe, he fell a little bit in love that day.

He could try and tell himself that it’s enough to justify Max’s spell over him; when he looked into Max's heart, he saw a fundamentally decent man buried under years of corporate grime, a man who’d grown to truly care about the League, about his friends , a man capable of doing good if he was just given the opportunity. It’s a lovely story, nice and neat and pretty, and it is a real story - but it’s only half of the story. Because while he did see all those things within Max’s psyche - the desire to be a better man, the desire for a new beginning -  he also saw a man who'd plotted to murder a so-called friend just to get a promotion. A man who’d orchestrated a terrorist attack that ended in a frenzied suicide, playing the League for fools, all for his own gain. 

“Imagine poor Collins, shooting himself like that. And his bomb failing to detonate. Imagine that. Maybe I should’ve given him the firing pin.”

Even now, after proving himself as a true ally and friend, he could still turn on a dime from the jovial Justice League wrangler, to the ruthless business magnate who’d re-shaped a multinational corporation in his image when the opportunity arose. It was that man who sat across from him discussing a brutally slain woman like she was a problem to be solved. 

“I’d like to buy a vowel, Pat. An ‘E’. I’d like to solve the puzzle.”

What does it say about him, that he finds himself so taken by Max in spite of knowing exactly the kind of man he is? What does it say about him, that he saw a man who lied and manipulated his way to the top, a man who underhandedly infiltrated the Justice League, the closest thing to a family J'onn had left, and placed them in danger without a second thought just because a machine told him it would help him win, and decided he wanted to get to know him? What does it say about him, that a man who planned to murder another human being in cold blood all to get ahead, a man who was happy to work with terrorists and supervillains for his own gain, has stirred feelings within him that he hasn’t felt since Mars?

He can ask himself that question a hundred times over, but at the end of the day, it won’t change how he feels about Max. He loves him, in a way he never thought he could love again, and because he loves this wonderful, infuriating man, because he believes in his good intentions, he listens.

In a way, Max was like the devil on his shoulder - how many times would he let him mould him into something just a little bit worse?

“Here’s what we do,” Max begins to explain, completely in his element, the confidence that got him to the top of corporate America on full display. “Leak out the word that they're quietly retired - they're dodging the limelight to get a crack at a normal marriage after this ‘invasion’ madness. Hawkman and Hawkwoman fade from sight until they're nothing but the stuff of legend, and none is the wiser. That's how we handle it!”

Max is practically beaming as he takes another self-satisfied puff of the cigar, evidently proud of his plan - and J'onn can't deny it's a good plan. Ethically dubious? Unquestionably. But clean and simple? Undeniably.

It's almost scary how efficiently the gears turn in Max's head. He was born for this.

“I still don’t like it, Max.”

Max's expression softens at J'onn's transparent unease. “I know this doesn’t sit right with you. Believe me, I’m not exactly thrilled about it either. But what other choice do we have? The League's reputation is at stake here.”

He pauses for a moment, taking a contemplative drag of his cigar. “Aren’t you the one who told me that League is your life ? That you would not allow me or anyone else to damage it in any way? We want the same thing here, J'onn, and that's for the League to continue thriving. This isn't a group of Superfriends hanging out in a cave anymore. It's an international operation. My job is to treat it like a business, and if there's one thing I learnt during my time on Wall Street, it's that doing business isn't always pleasant. Sometimes you just have to swallow down the bile and carry on.”

Max places his hand atop J’onn’s, tracing gentle circles across the green skin with his thumb, looking up at him with a tight smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. 

“But you know that, don't you? There’s a reason you’re here with me and not out there with the rest of them. We’re a team, you and me. It’s up to us to keep things running smoothly around here, to make the hard calls nobody else wants to make. Because if we don’t, well…” he trails off, his demeanour growing grave, his voice taut. “What if, next time, it’s Beetle or Ice who you end up cradling in your arms as they die? I won’t let that happen, J’onn, I won’t.” 

There’s a firmness to his tone, a sense of determination, his true feelings bleeding through the slick facade. Because Max truly does care about the League, and he’ll do what he deems necessary to protect the things that matter to him. Hawkman and Hawkwoman? They didn’t matter to him, not really. But Booster and Beetle? Bea, Tora, Guy? They do matter to him. That’s the thing that’s changed about Max since J’onn first met him in Happy Harbour back in 1987. He’s found something more thrilling than money and power, and he’s made preserving the feeling he gets when he’s around his friends, these people who he loves and who love him in turn, his new grand mission in life. His love isn’t selfless, but it’s love all the same. 

Max takes another puff of the cigar, seemingly to calm himself down, a cloud of cigar smoke surrounding him like mist on a dewy morning as he exhales. 

“You told me once that the League could never mean as much to me as it does to you - I don’t doubt that to be true. But it’s grown to mean a hell of a lot to me, and you can be damn sure that whatever I do, I only do because I see it as being in the League’s best interest. That’s something we have in common. So, what do you say, J’onn. Are you with me?”

J’onn knew that the old League would never go for this. Hell, he very much doubted that this League would go for it. But the old League had died with Paco and Hank, and as for the current League? He and Max were the only ones in the room. They were the only ones who had to know. 

Well, the two of them and Amanda, but if anyone would understand the unsentimental tidiness of this solution to their little Hawk-mess, it was Waller. For as much as she and Max tended to lock horns when anywhere near each other, a keen eye for navigating the tricky waters of bureaucracy, for doing the dirty behind-the-scenes work that the spandex set didn’t want to stop and think about, was one thing they very much had in common. Max just put a much more pleasant public face to the whole operation than Amanda did - handshakes with world leaders and smiling faces on lunch boxes rather than shadowy backroom deals and exploding bracelets. 

J’onn sighs as he intertwines his fingers with Max’s, giving his hand a gentle squeeze.

“I don’t like it, but… if it’s for the good of the League, I’ll stay silent.”

When Max beams at him - not the phony, well-practiced smile he puts on for diplomats and journalists, but something warm and bright and genuine and reserved only for J’onn - it almost makes J’onn feel like he’s doing the right thing. 

“I knew you'd see things my way, J’onn!” He declares exuberantly. “I mean, surely you of all people would understand that I'm only doing what's best for the League.”

The familiar, smoky smell of tobacco still clings to him, blending with his usual overpriced cologne to create a scent that J’onn could place anywhere, one so unmistakably Max that J’onn can’t help but be drawn to it . 

Max’s demeanour has shifted yet again, the shrewd pragmatism giving way to something softer, something sweeter. “It's like I said, we’re a team, J'onn.” He croons earnestly as he traces playful circles across J'onn's chest. “I couldn't do any of this without you. You’re my anchor, J’onn. You make me a better man.”

“I try to do the best I can, Max. That’s all any of us can do.”

“It is, isn’t it?” He trails off for a moment, almost wistfully, before composing himself, clapping a hand to J’onn’s shoulder. 

“Look, J’onn, I know this has been a tough day for you. What happened to that poor woman right in front of you, I can't even imagine… Hell , even Amanda seemed shaken by it, for god’s sake. But I know one way I can help you forget about it, at least for a little while.” 

Max gives his best attempt at a seductive smile, cocking an eyebrow playfully, and J’onn almost feels a laugh bubble to the surface.

“Max…” he tries to keep an even tone, but struggles to hold back his amusement. “I’m not sure if now is the time.”

“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong, J’onnie. Now is the perfect time. There’s no one here but us, and sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves isn’t going to do anybody any good. Why don’t you let me help you forget?” he purrs.

J’onn knows what people think about him - they think he’s above it all, some sort of paragon, the wisest of them all, and perhaps the most powerful. It’d be easy to let it go to one’s head - and certainly, J’onn can’t deny it’s preferable to being seen as some sort of freaky monster like he was when he first came to Earth. But the thing is that people are still wrong about him . On Mars, he was neither a god nor a monster. He was just a man. That’s the thing about being a stranger in a strange land, an alien - people, even those that mean well, are always going to regard you as the Other, and are going to be incapable of seeing you as ordinary. J’onn has the same feelings, the same wants and desires, as any human, but because he doesn’t outwardly express those desires in the way humans are used to - there was no need to on Mars, not when telepathy was a birthright - he knows that even his dearest friends tend see him as stoic. Unfeeling, even.

But not Max.

Max sees him,  in a way no else does.  It’s one of the things he loves about him. He doesn’t treat J’onn as some unknowable alien creature like the rest of them do, both in their misplaced fear and their misguided reverence. He just treats him as J’onn, his friend. He sees J’onn in a way the others don’t. There’s an easy rapport between them, and J’onn feels comfortable being open with Max in a way he hasn’t been with anyone else since coming to Earth. He’s told Max about Mars, about his family, and Max, with uncharacteristic gentleness, listens, smiling softly as he lets J’onn reminisce on the life he lost. Max knows things about him no one else does, and when they’re together, J’onn feels closer to home than he has in a very long time.

Max sees him. Max knows him. Max can help him forget his troubles.

In these private moments, when Max is in his arms, nothing else matters. How can it, when he’s so focused on loving the man in front of him? How can he bring himself to think about the weight of Sharon’s lifeless body, when all he can feel is Max? Max’s lips against his neck, Max’s hands running down his chest, Max, Max, Max, is all he can think, calling out his name like a desperate prayer to H’ronmeer.

He falls to his knees, and lets Max show him how to forget.

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