Dining on Ashes is what I'm calling a particular chapter of a 4 chapter story I wrote. I called it that because Superman actually walks up to J'onn while he is standing on the balcony of the D.E.O and actually says to him 'Dining on Ashes'. Meaning 'what is so preoccupying your thoughts right now and what gave your face that look'. J'onn explains that his closest friend Nikita, a woman Superman also knows quite well, compared him to the utter asshole that is Hank Henshaw. The man whose face he is wearing. J'onn assumed his identity out of need and though his true identity is known now, he kept the face. Superman's first reaction is. “You mean the military jerk who kept her prisoner for 6 years and tried to execute you on the spot? That'll do it.”
J'onn replies. “Believe it or not Superman, that's not the problem. The trouble is...I think she was right.”
Leading to the first personal conversation J'onn and Superman ever had in this world. And leading both of them to understand Nikita far better than they already did, just by hearing the other's experiences with her. But anyway what had happened was that Nikita had sheltered a White Martian under her roof. Normally that wouldn't be a problem except for J'onn's people White Martians are demons. And he could not understand why Nikita would defend 'that thing' and keep her safe. Unfortunately in that one moment Nikita had some serious flashbacks to how Director Henshaw spoke to and regarded HER the six years she was in his custody. She's a human looking alien who in Henshaw's mind must have been hiding her alien nature. And the only reason Hank treated her with such certain suspicion was that she was an alien. Which to Henshaw's mind had made her, had made Nikita automatically an enemy, a hostile to be caged.
It is not flashed back to. It is a different chapter of the story. That chapter ends before it should. There is something that goes in that chapter I never added, it's below. But when Nikita and Me'gann were in her apartment and Nikita ended up stopping just short of asking J'onn to leave, Nikita said that Me'gann as a White Martian is hurting her, but J'onn is the one who is making her sick. It is a fact of her own Xavallen philology that being around Me'gann is physically painful to her. But J'onn is the one that in an emotional and personal sense is making her sick. Not only is what she senses from him painful to endure (she's a low-level empath and J'onn is one of her closest friends) She tells him he is living up to his face. Which completely floors him for a moment. And very quietly she says. “If because of this you don't want me at the D.E.O. Anymore I'll understand, and I'll leave. But I cannot not stand up for her. I'm sorry.”
After J'onn left her apartment Me'gann asks her why she went so far to defend a stranger. For that matter why she defied a man who was her direct superior as well as an individual she so obviously respects. "One: You are not your people. I can see that because I'm a low-level empath. J'onn is as blind as his face's sake. And that's actually been brought up before. Two years ago Kal'el of Krypton assumed the worst about... Mon'el actually, my fiance... just because he's from Daxam. But that was a DEO matter and they at least had a reason to think him guilty of what was going on at the time. An attack on a senator it turned out he had nothing to do with and wasn't physically capable of doing. They just assumed the worst because of how Kryptonians felt about Daxamites. It was the closest we've come in the last 8 years to living under Henshaw's rules...until tonight. Assuming the worst about someone based on thier race or thier appearance isn't something I hold with, no matter who is what race. I understand J'onn's feelings toward you. In that I know what you people are to each-other. I know what White Martians are and I know what he's lost. But my home is a sanctuary of peace and he was the one violating it. More personally and egregiously, you're a guest in my house. You are under my protection. Ultimately it comes down to the very simple fact that I know you well enough to know that I can trust you. And no one with a brain in their skull insults a friend of mine in my house. Not even J'onn who is my closest friend on this planet can get away with THAT. And I will not regret doing what I know is right, no matter the consequences. Ultimately no one has the right to ask me not to live up to the who of my being. And this is what I believe in.”
It is an indeterminate amount of time later that J'onn is standing on the balcony talking to Superman, having realized that Nikita was right. In so far as comparing him to Hank Henshaw she was not only in the right to do so but she was correct about him. Hank Henshaw had thrown her into a cell at the D.E.O without suspecting much less accusing her of any crime, simply because she was an alien. And that was exactly what J'onn had been trying to do: He'd come into her (Nikita's) home to take someone away to prison who was guilty of nothing more than being born a White Martian. He didn't even ask the woman her name before trying to take her to the D.E.O in chains. Like in actual literal restraints. And was shocked that Nikita did not allow this, was not on his side. Which given her own history, she never would have stood for it. To Nikita it probably looked and felt like J'onn had become Hank Henshaw.
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