𝙼𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝 𝙹𝚞𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚎, 𝚁𝚑𝚘𝚍𝚎 𝙸𝚜𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚍
𝙹𝚞𝚕𝚢 𝟷𝟾𝚝𝚑, 𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟶 𝙴𝙳𝚃

House arrest. It's a human punishment commonly used in media and in real life for crimes that don't require a more severe punishment, which means it is a light punishment. It is described as keeping the offending person inside of their own home until the required time has been completed, allowing them to once again interact with the outside world.

Batman has currently placed us on house arrest. We did not commit a crime or do anything wrong, but yet he said we must stay inside the cave if not on a mission. He said it was only until we could learn to interact with the outside world property. Which we were apparently failing to do.

'Well, the caves big enough, isn't it? Let's go explore!' (Y/n) exclaimed, 'We also have new teammates to interact with, don't we? Let's talk to them! I've been dying to talk to someone my age. Justice Leaguers are too stuffy...'

'We are behind on monitoring dimensions, we should do that soon...'

'Ah bah tah! That can be done later. Please Failsafe, can we go hang out with the others?' (Y/n) stated that they 'are so cool!'

We walked into the kitchen, looking for them. They all seem to be somewhere else, we knew they were here though, we'd seen them around.

We smelled something, it smelled like burning. We found the source coming from the oven.

'Do we open it and see what's inside?' (Y/n) asked, we could feel the desire to stop breathing in the smoky smell coming from deep inside us.

'Will it threaten the burn down the cave if we do not?' We asked. That would be a very serious hazard if so.

'Probably not. But you knew know... I say take whatever's out of there, the person baking probably didn't want to create a crematorium in the kitchen.'

Crematorium. The word for a place you burn dead bodies in.

'Is there a dead body inside of the oven?'

'Who knows? It smells like one, anyway. So take it out!' We did as (Y/n) said, opening the oven door and grasping onto the pan.

'Shouldn't the person who put the thing in the oven know what's in the oven?'

'Failsafe! Ow, you're supposed to use oven mitts!' (Y/n) exclaimed as the pan burnt through our skin.

We healed it, but didn't let go of the pan, the cycle of burning and healing continued as we held it, taking it out of the oven and closing the door.

M'gann flew into the kitchen to find us, she seemed confused. We waved with our free hand. Because that is something humans commonly do as a greeting.

"Hello, M'gann. We have successfully retrieved your," We tried to remember how (Y/n) said it, "Koo Keys,"

She frowned, looking down at them. Had we done something wrong? Everyone else had filed into the room by now. Robin raised his eyebrow.

"I'm sorry, Failsafe, did you just say koo keys?" He questioned us. He opened his mouth to say something else, we noted the amused smile appearing on his mouth.

"Do you not know what a cookie is?" Wallace interjected.

We looked at them, then down at the koo keys, then back to them. "Koo keys are burnt, circular pieces of sustenance."

Robin started to laugh, Kaldur'ahm placed a hand on his shoulder to make him stop. We frowned, did we say something wrong? Wallace laughed too, no one stopped him.

We placed the pan down after sapping all of the heat out of it, healing our hand for the last time.

"I was trying out Grammy Jones' recipe from episode 17 of..." M'gann mumbled, and Wallace stopped laughing. We all looked at her, trying to hear what she had said, she looked at all of us.

"Heh, never mind." She chuckled, embarrassed.

"I bet they'd have tasted great," Robin said, we think he was trying to comfort her. But didn't she make it correctly?

And I thought humans had to put the food in their mouths to eat them. We looked at the food, trying to will the taste into our mouth. When it didn't work we just plopped a 'cookie' into our mouth.

Wallace picked up a couple and started eating them quickly, we took the time with the one we had, crunching it with our enamel-covered dentin. It didn't taste right to us, but we relished in it nonetheless as (Y/n) said we loved burnt food.

'Burnt is just better, the smokiness, the crisp outer layer, the only thing that sucks about burnt food is the smell!'

"They don't seem to mind," Robin motioned toward us and Wallace. He was eating them much faster, with more force than us.

"I have a serious metabolism," Wallace explained. We shrugged, "Isn't this how they're supposed to taste?"

No one answered us.

"I guess I'll make more?" M'gann phrased her statement as a question.

"It was sweet of you to make any," Kaldur'ahm told her.

"Thanks, Aqualad," M'gann spoke in a sigh, we suppose she was flustered by the situation.

"We're off duty, call me Kaldur'ahm." He told her. We put another cookie in our mouth, crunching. Beneath all the crispness it tasted sweet. We should not get used to eating sweets, they impact human health from what we're aware of. And we needed to be healthy to benefit the team.

"Actually," Kaldur'ahm stopped, "My friends call me Kaldur," he smiled.

"I'm Wally. See, I already trust you with my secret ID..." Wallace leaned over the table, looking straight at M'gann, due to being by the oven we were in between them. We backed up.

"...unlike Mr. Dark Glasses over here." Wallace pointed at Robin with minimal effort or care, "Batman's forbidden Boy Wonder from telling anyone his real name." Robin frowned, putting his hands on his hips.

"Mine's no secret. It's M'gann M'orzz." M'gann put her hands on her hips and stood proud, different from Robin.

"But you can call me Megan. It's an Earth name, and I'm on Earth now." She gushed.

Robin looked at us, straight in the eye despite the sunglasses, maybe that's because while we were the same age in terms of body, we were also similar heights.

"What about you, Failsafe? Comfortable with sharing your name?" He had his hands in his pockets, a smile was on his face.

We tilted our head, furrowing our eyebrows. "We already have? Failsafe is our name."

"No, no, no, not your hero name. Your actual one," Wallace corrected us. We frowned, trying to show our displeasure.

"Wally, you shouldn't force her to reveal her name if she'd not comfortable with it," Kaldur'ahm spoke up for us.

"Well, yeah, but I thought since she's shown her face with no barriers then she'd just misunderstood—"

We cut him off, "Failsafe is our name, there is nothing else."

Everyone's attention was on us, "You don't have a secret ID?" Wallace asked us, baffled.

We shook our head, "Is that so weird? Superboy doesn't have one," yet.

"Well yeah, but he's a clone. You've been alive for how long? Shouldn't you have a name?" Robin asked, curious.

"Our body is fourteen years old as of May thirty-first. But any identity it might've had has been void since two years ago."

"Hold on, what—"

Behind me, Superboy turned to leave, sick of hearing the conversation.

He grunted, just through the door, before clutching his head and screaming, "Get out of my head!"

Everyone turned to M'gann, who was shocked and still.

'What's wrong? I don't understand. Everyone on Mars communicates telepathically.' M'gann broadcasted her thoughts into everyone's head, it seemed we were the only ones unaffected. The only ones immune to Martian telepathy naturally.

Everyone clutched their heads, trying to make it stop, until Kaldur'ahm spoke up, "M'gann, stop."

And then she did.

"Things are different on Earth. Here, your powers are an extreme invasion of privacy." Kaldur'ahm explained.

"Besides, Cadmus' creepy little psychic G-Gnomes left a bad taste in his brain," Wally teased.

"I didn't mean to..." M'gann stuttered out.

"Just stay out," Superboy warned her. (Y/n) thought that was a little mean. He walked away, going to sit on the couch this time. There was silence for a moment as M'gann tried to think of a way to keep the conversation going. Wallace had long since eaten the rest of the cookies, so we brought the tray to the sink.

"Hello, Megan. I know what we can do." M'gann hit herself on her forehead before flying away. The boys looked at each other, Robin shrugged. And we all followed after her.

She went back for Superboy, and he came along too. We all filed into the elevator, it was a tight fit with all six of us in there. It seems five is the occupancy limit for this elevator.

M'gann brought us to the hanger, where a massive red and black ship was waiting in an egg-like shape.

"It's my Martian Bio-Ship," M'gann stated proudly.

"Cute. Not aerodynamic, but cute," Wallace commented.

"It's at rest, silly. I'll wake it," M'gann giggled. Motioning to the ship to awake from its slumber, it began to expand, growing wing-like formations as its colors began to take more solid shapes. She flipped it around and the door opened.

"Well, are you coming?" She asked, pleased with all of the others' expressions of awe. We'd known about it from our own memories, but we did have to say, seeing something physically made all the difference as we observed it.

Maybe we were mistaken, but we could've sworn we saw it begin to breathe. We had to have been mistaken, it's a ship, and there is no oxygen in space.

Unless it breaths differently than other life forms, and in that case, it must be studied. We recalled our memories, not liking how hazy they'd become, we found nothing. Did we never investigate?

Everyone piled into the ship, except us. We stayed out right where we were on the ground.

M'gann frowned, "Failsafe, are you not coming?" We shook our head.

"Batman told us we could not leave the cave unless it was for a mission or with a member's permission," we paused, "We will go ask Red Tornado, if he gives us the clearance we will catch up with the rest of the team. Is that satisfactory?"

M'gann hesitated, "Well, alright then, I wouldn't want to get you in trouble."

We tried to smile at her, but she winced uncomfortably and backed into the ship. We stepped back as it took off.

Well, let us go find Red Tornado.
_________________

We contacted M'gann telepathically, as we stood in the kitchen flipping through a book called, 'Baking with buddies!'

   'M'gann, Tornado could not give us clearance to follow you out of the cave, apologies.'

   She responded, 'That's okay. But weird, I can talk to you now but before it was nothing.'

   'Yes, we have given you permission into our head this time.'

   'Sorry...'

   'There's nothing to be sorry about. You have done nothing wrong.' To us, at least.

   'Don't worry, M'gann!' (Y/n) told M'gann, attaching to the mind-link, though the way (Y/n) said the name sounded like 'Megan' instead of the actual name, M'gann. 'We'll join you next time!'

  'Who was that?!' M'gann panicked, 'Wait! There are actually two of you?! I thought those were just your pronouns!'

   Defensive, we stated, 'No. There are not two, there is only one. We are one. Failsafe. Goodbye.' We shut off the mind-link.

  'That wasn't very nice, Safy,' (Y/n) said.

  We ignored that comment. 'What should we make from the book?' We'd decided to do something with our time and create something for the team to enjoy when they get back from battling with Mister Twister.

   'Oooh, screw the book. We should make Jacksonville-style brownies!' (Y/n) suggested, bringing up a recipe from memory.

   'That recipe contains a psychoactive drug, which will inhibit brain function.'

  'Yeah Failsafe, I know. That's why you don't use it, just make the brownies without it.'

  'But, it's in the recipe.' We argued. If it's in the recipe shouldn't it be vital to the creation of the desired substance?

   'Then don't make it!' Hormones that made us jittery flooded our body for a flashing moment.

   'Okay, we won't.' We put the Baking for Buddies book away.

   'What should we do instead?' We asked. Not knowing what to do.

   '...We'll, you could contact M'gann and apologize. Or we could go see what Tornado's doing.' Another option popped into our head, but we went to go see Tornado at (Y/n)'s protest.

  We found the android in its room above the main hub of the cave, flying up to find it constructing something.

   "Tornado," we drew its attention towards us as we landed on the floor, "We were wondering if you would like to do something with us? Just until the team gets back, we wouldn't want to trouble you anymore." The only reason we were troubling him was because (Y/n) found the android cool.

   So that's how we ended up playing chess with a robot. We let him go first with white. He moved the pawn protecting his king two spaces. We did the same. Then he moved the one protecting his Queen two spaces, we moved our right knight.

  We continued on making moves for half an hour until the cave alerted us to the threat in Happy Harbor, Red Tornado had to get up to tell the team about it.

  We sat back, (Y/n) commented about how this was the absolute worst, not being able to go fight with our new teammates just because Batman wasn't here. We fully agreed with that sentiment.

   We haven't been able to do anything with the team since coming to the cave, the closest we've gotten to being useful has been regular patrol of the other dimensions, where Batman has no say over our actions.

   Red came back, and we continued our chess game. M'gann popped into our head, asking for assistance, 'Failsafe, can you get down here? Red gave us a mission!'

   'We would love to, but we weren't given permission to leave,' we moved our room four spaces down, 'But you all can handle it, we're sure.'

   She didn't respond for a long while, but she did come back, 'We think that Mister Twister is Red Tornado in disguise, which means this is a test by the League! Failsafe that means it's okay to come, you have to, we have to show them we can work as a team!'

   'Impossible,' we told her as Red moved its queen down the whole board, what's he planning?

   'What? Why?' M'gann questioned, confused.

   'Because Red Tornados here, with us, playing chess.'

    'What!?' She cut out. We assumed she had started combat.

   Well then, back to chess.
________________________

   When the team had come back, they seemed closer, happier. We'd say this was a win, and hoped next time we could join them.

    "It was clearly created to sabotage or destroy you," Kaldur'ahm told Red Tornado.

   "Agreed." The robot said.

   "Is that why you wouldn't help us?" M'gann inquired.

     "No. This was your battle. I do not believe it is my role to solve your problems for you. Nor should you solve mine for me," Tornado explained.

    "But if you're in danger..." M'gann trailed off. We found this conversation quite ironic.

    "Consider this matter closed." Red Tornado stated.

    "Batman, Aquaman and Flash, they'd have jumped right in to fix things," Wallace stated with a light tone, like he was surprised things went this way.

    "Guess if we're gonna have a babysitter, a heartless machine is exactly what we need," Robin joked.

   "Dude, harsh," Wallace called him out.

    "And inaccurate." Red Tornado drew the attention to itself, "I have a heart. Carbon-steel alloy," it turned around to stare straight at Robin, "I also have excellent hearing." It finished calling out the fourteen-year-old.

   "Heh, right. Sorry. I'll strive to be more accurate," Embarrassed, Robin backed down.

   "And more respectful," Kaldur'ahm corrected him.

   "Speedy was so wrong," Wallace claimed.

   "This team thing?" Robin asked, making sure that's what his friend meant.

    "Might just work out," Kaldur'ahm finished the boys' thoughts.

   We wanted to tell them, of course, but yes.

   This team will work out for the better. And we can't wait to see it happen.