Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

«A morsel sweeter, a stomach’s fill,» Billy incanted in ancient Babylonian, gesturing to the pile of shredded newspaper.

Nothing.

As per usual. 

Well, he wasn’t solving that problem, today. 

«Lustrous and rose,» he incanted instead in Ancient Sumerian.

His knees went weak and he fell on his butt. 

Probably shouldn’t have done the whole pile, but now he had a bunch more copper shavings. He took a breath and got up, shoving the shavings into the duffel bag that was already mostly full of them. One way or another, he’d be eating today.

Walking out the door, Billy looked up at the sky where the countdown continued.  It could be seen from any point in the world, clear at night or day, and it had been counting down for the last couple of days. Even more disturbingly, it was visible in the corner of every screen capable of playing video media, including ones that were powered off or unplugged. The Justice League, Captain Marvel included, had been investigating from the very beginning, and had been stymied at every turn. The numerals were just there, floating in the sky. He had flown up to investigate; the numerals were immaterial, seeming to generate spontaneously. 

Cyborg had been investigating the video aspect, and had been unable to find how exactly it was being done. Oracle and Red Robin had been conducting their own investigation, with little to show for it. 

No one knew what the countdown was for. The verdict was that it was godly in nature, but, bizarrely, non-terrestrial. It was not quite impossible, but interference from another culture’s, another world’s, deity, so far from home, was incredibly rare. And for it to be so strong exerting its influence on Earth, to the point where all of Justice League Dark could not dispel it…

Captain Marvel had poured everything he had and more into it, and failed. Whatever was coming was beyond powerful.

Fifty-eight minutes until they found out what was going on. That was how long Billy had to sell his copper and get some dinner. No time to visit the library to update his blog. He had the impulse to transform, get himself to the scrap yard in a couple of seconds, and then have plenty of time, but he squashed it. It was a cheap excuse, one he’d always be able to convince himself of if he gave into it now; there would always be something going on, some justification to why this time it would be okay to use the powers of Shazam to make his personal life easier. 

Not today, and hopefully not ever. Billy had never been the perfect candidate to become the Champion, the wizard had been clear about that, and he was all he had to keep himself honest.

Twelve minutes, when he got off the bus, and he’d have to hoof it to the corner mart after he got his cash.

“You got another haul for me, kid?” asked Mercy, when he walked in. “You should be at home, with whatever’s going on.”

“Sure do,” said Billy. “Captain Marvel’ll keep us safe, besides.”

He hefted his bag on the counter, and Mercy lifted her brows at the sound it made. 

“I think it’s a good twenty pounds, today,” he said.

She frowned at him. 

“Billy,” she said. 

“Hm?”

“No one will be mad at you, if they’re making you do something you shouldn’t for all the scrap you’re bringing me.”

Billy’s face fell as his stomach gave a swoop.

“I just sweep up their shop, is all,” he said. 

She gave him a look that said she was worried he wasn’t telling the truth, but all she said was, “The rate they bust through copper, I feel like they could stand to slip you a twenty for your work.”

“Well, this is worth a good bit more than twenty dollars,” said Billy.

“Yeah, it is,” she said.

“They’re just a hobbyist,” said Billy. “They don’t want to deal with it. It works out.”

“Do they do commissions?” Mercy asked, not terribly subtly. “I might be interested in some of their work.”

Billy was going to need to find a new hustle. 

“You’re right,” he said. “I should really be getting home. Maybe we could talk about this another time.”

She sighed, and weighed his copper. Nineteen and a half pounds. It was three dollars a pound, and Mercy rounded it up to sixty bucks for him. Billy just had to hope that however long this thing lasted, the sixty bucks would be enough for him to get through it. He couldn’t exactly be worried about putting food in his belly while the world was in crisis.

“Stay safe out there, Billy,” said Mercy as he she handed him the three twenties. 

“Always,” Billy lied again.

He ran for it, beelining to corner market, wishing he’d given himself more time, because he really needed new shoes. He came to a stop, though, a little out of breath, a few feet away. 

10…

9…

8…

Giving up on dinner, Billy turned towards an alley where he could transform.

Entering the dark alley, Billy opened his mouth to call for the Living Lightning as the counter reached zero. 

Billy’s world was transformed into white before he could get a syllable out.

“Bertel?” Tim asked.

“The Philmont plant, all of our chip manufactories, and the Burgen and Fulsome foundries are completely shut down, for possible long-term closure,” said Bertel, his cell phone video feed a little spotty on Tim’s screen, the accursed countdown showing they had twenty minutes left. “All personnel were sent home as of two hours ago.”

“Excellent. Hodges?” Tim asked, turning to Hodge’s screen.

“All nuclear programs have been spun down for possible long-term closure,” said Hodges. “We have enough security staff to meet regulations who have volunteered to stay on post, bunkered down. Doctor Yeun has insisted on staying at her post with Doctor McMillan, however. All other staff finished evacuating one hour ago.”

Tim made a face. Per regulation, they only needed one of them to stay, so he would prefer Doctor Yeun to evacuate, but her commitment was laudable, and could come in handy if things went really pear shaped.

“Alright. And, Ms. Adedeji?” 

She responded  “The decentralized emergency command post is online. All communication systems are operational. Emergency personnel are on call, as needed.” 

“Well, that should cover it, then,” said Tim. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being here to help ensure the safety of our employees and our global communities. Is everyone somewhere safe?”

“Are you?” asked Ms. Adedeji.

“I’m where I need to be,” said Tim. “And I’m more secure than most.”

It burned a little, to be dealing with the situation as Tim Drake, for the moment, and not as Red Robin. He was being kept in reserve, so he could help oversee the safety of the global employees and communities of Wayne Enterprises. And, if he focused on that, he could pretend his relegation had nothing to do with the civilians Tim hadn’t been able to save last week and Bruce wanting him on light duty to destress. 

He loosened his tie as over three dozen windows went dark, save for their glowing countdown clocks. “Just you and me, Ms. Adedeji.”

She gave him a wry look. “You really should be home, Mr. Drake.”

“We’ll see how things shake out,” he said. Where he should really be was in the Batcave, or Titan’s Tower.

“I really hope this is nothing,” she said.

Tim really doubted it was nothing. “So, how are the niblings doing?”

“They are still terrors,” Ms. Adedeji told him.

So they chatted, talking about anything other than the countdown, until the minutes became seconds, and the countdown was all that was left.

“Still glad you took this job?” asked Tim.

“I wouldn’t rather be anywhere else,” she said.

5…

4…

3…

2…

1…

The world went white.

Being an entirely non-magical hero during an entirely magical calamity was not a situation Clark ever relished. No matter that they had a highly capable JL Dark, uselessness was a feeling Clark did not deal well with. Something was coming, something powerful, and for the time being, there was nothing for Superman to do. So, as the countdown raced to zero, Clark was on the streets, as a reporter, getting the very human perspective of what was going on. 

Perry probably should have sent everyone home, but good investigative journalists weren’t exactly known for their sensible decision making.

It was down to a minute. Soon, something would happen. Hopefully, it would be something Clark could deal with.

There were more people on the streets than Clark might have expected. It was mostly single adults, out to see what would happen. Families were more likely to be hunkered down. Clark had stopped at a few block parties, before seeking out the stragglers. The people speed walking home from work. The ones still at work. The young man with a six pack alone on the grass at the park.

Now, it was Clark, alone, approaching the Zeta Tube, disguised as a phone booth, where his costume was stored, preparing to race off as Superman at a moment’s notice. 

5…

4…

3…

Clark loosened his tie, and was undoing his top button when the world went suddenly white.

“When we get our hands on the ghost doing this,” said Dad, over the early dinner Jazz had insisted they have together, waving his hand at the smoke rising from his soldering, the syringe of flux in said hand spraying a few drops across Danny’s spaghetti. 

Danny put his fork down.

Sometimes he wished he’d just gone ahead and told Jazz the truth about what had happened. She wouldn’t have made him come to dinner, if he had, probably.

He didn’t know what she’d have done if he’d told her.

He’d tried to get out of this, an hour ago, saying that Phantom needed to go out to deal with the problem, and she’d rolled her eyes, correctly pointing out this had nothing to do with ghosts, and to let the Justice League handle it. Eating a meal together before a possible calamity was important for a family, apparently.

“We’ll rip the dirty ghost apart, molecule by molecule!” Mom said. “The spaghetti’s lovely, dear,” she said to Jazz.

The gleam of metal in her hand kept catching Danny’s attention; he had to keep checking that it was just a fork.

Jazz looked at Danny apologetically. 

“Come on, you guys,” she said, “we don’t know what’s about to happen, but we’re here together. Danny, how was your day home from school?” 

“Danny, why didn’t you go to school?” asked Mom, clearly already disappointed with him.

“There wasn’t any,” said Danny, cringing under her piercing gaze. “The world’s ending.”

Less than a minute left, and something would happen, and Danny would have an excuse to leave the table. Leave the house, hopefully.

“Oh, the world’s not ending,” Mom said dismissively.

“We won’t let it!” said Dad. “Not once I finish the Fenton Imploder to bring this ghost down to size! Then we’ll show it what Fenton’s do to slimy ghosts making trouble.”

“And it will be a good warning to any ghosts that think they can come and hurt the living,” said Mom.

“I thought they couldn’t think,” Danny muttered.

“What was that, dear?”

“Nothing. May I be excused?”

“Excused? You’ve hardly touched your dinner!” said Dad, his hand slapping Danny on the back and resting on his shoulder, holding him down in his chair. “Come on, now. How are you going to fight ghosts on an empty stomach.”

Danny was going to throw up if he had to stay here much longer. But he probably wouldn’t because:

10…

9…

8…

“Okay, well, the important thing is we’re all together,” said Jazz.

“I’m here with you, Jazz,” said Danny.

3…

2…

1…

Everything went white.

“Rejoice! For the God Antantlous is here! To! En-ter-tain! Youuuuuu!”

There was a great fanfare of trumpets. 

Billy’s mouth shut as he took in the scene before him. A vast flat expanse. Marble? Two familiar faces, and one completely unfamiliar. Enormous spectator stands, filled to the brim with aliens, separated from them by distance and faintly shimmering fields. A huge being sitting on a throne; Billy thought it had a similar form to most, but not all, of the aliens in the stands, but at the distance from the stands, he couldn’t quite tell. It was humanoid with scales ranging from scarlet red to vibrant yellow. He wasn’t the one talking. Billy couldn’t see who was talking.

There were screens in the sky, hanging independent of anything as the countdowns had been, showing the four of them from an elevated circling viewpoint, before the scene changed to show video from around the world, of people watching them. 

He just had to be Billy when the countdown hit zero, didn’t he. Across from him, Clark was in the same sticky situation, dressed as Clark Kent, instead of as Superman. To his right, Tim Drake-Wayne was stood, instead of Red Robin. To his left…well, the boy looked like a civilian, already with a done-with-this expression on his face, jeans and a black long-sleeved shirt under a white NASA t-shirt, but Billy doubted he’d turn out to be the odd actual civilian in the group.

Billy…did not know what he’d do if he had to lose his secret identity, today.

“Aw, beans,” he said.

Bruce stared at the screen in horror. 

How? 

Why?

Tim was supposed to be safe, tonight. As safe as anyone could be, on a day like this. Yet, there he was, without his armor, without his weapons, without any actual bat tech; not so much as a domino. Facing an enemy that had thus far stymied the entire Justice League.

“Oracle,” he ground out.

“It’s really him,” she said over the com. “Tim disappeared from his office and his tracker went offline, at the same time he appeared on the broadcast.”

Bruce looked out at the assembled heroes with him on the Watchtower. “Do we have a location?” he demanded.

This was the nightmare scenario. Whatever the heck was going on, Danny was very publicly Danny Fenton, at the moment. Very publicly. 

It had always been rare that Danny was stuck acting as himself instead of as Phantom. On those rare occasions, Danny had always been able to get away eventually for a moment to transform. Here? Given how entirely pervasive the countdown had been, Danny didn’t think he’d be able to get away with it. 

If he could have just been on patrol, instead of suffering through dinner…

“Uh,” Danny started, but startled when he heard his voice amplified from the distant stands. 

Great. He took a breath, painfully aware as whatever invisible camera focused on him. 

“Anyone know what’s going on?” he asked. 

“Not anymore than you do, I’d expect,” said their apparent adult chaperone, his own voice projected as the screens focused on him. “I think we all appeared here at the same time, when the counter hit zero.”

“But why?” asked the little scruffy boy, cringing when the focus was then on him. 

“I suspect,” said the boy close to Danny’s age, “we’ll be finding out pretty soon.” He had a sour look on his face as he said so. 

“And is that not the question?” the announcer’s voice boomed. “Welcome, one and all, to our latest observation of our centennial judgement, here for the entertainment of Tantalans and Earthlings alike, this century titled: The Rise or Fall of Atlas! A reference to the local culture’s belief in a Titan that holds up their planet.”

As flustered as he already was, Danny really didn’t like the sound of that. There was also condescending laughter from the stands. Danny really didn’t like that either. 

“I am your cleric host, giving all glory to Antantlous, our God of Entertainment and Judgement!” There were more cheers. “Here before you, Tantala, Earth, and all the spread out worlds that love Antantlous, I present you with the four most powerfully dangerous Earthlings alive today.”

Tim just barely held back a flinch, his mind immediately going to his evil future self, AKA Batman with guns. Across from him, the older of their mystery boys winced, a pained expression on his face. If Tim had to guess, the other boy knew exactly what made him dangerous. 

The announcer paid no attention to their tells, moving right along.

“I’m really not sure what it says about them they’ve sent three children to fight this battle.”

“We weren’t sent,” Tim said icily. Besides him, Clark gave him a warning look, probably telling him not to needlessly antagonize the wildly powerful entities that had summoned them.

“Do not think Earth can weasel out of responsibility for you,” said the announcer, making the boy to Tim’s side growl and the boy across from him flare his nostrils. “Here you stand, the four individuals with the greatest potential to reach the heights of sainthood or infamy; do most Earthlings just peak early?”

Jeez, the crowd really seemed to love this guy.

“Why are we here?” asked Clark.

A Tantalan appeared suddenly among them. “It is as I said,” they said, their voice clearly that of the announcer. "You are here to be judged. And, you are here to ENTERTAIN!”

The roar from the crowd was deafening, all the more so because Antantlous was clapping. 

“And what gives you the right to judge us?” asked the older of the other boys.

The Tantalan was suddenly behind him, speaking in his ear, making the kid skitter away.

“I am your cleric host, all glory to Antantlous, highest of all judges.”

The nameless cleric disappeared again, but they kept speaking.

“With countless lives on the line, Atlas and his competitors will be undergoing numerous trials over the coming months.”

That sounded really really bad. That sounded like there might not be any way to get through this without sacrificing his and Clark’s secret identities, to say nothing of whatever the other two boys had going on. Tim couldn’t be the reason his family had to initiate their Ghost Protocol. 

He just couldn’t.

“And in-between trials, well, no rest for the vicious. We have lots of entertainment scheduled for you all, in the style of Earthly television shows, with our guests as the stars.”

Yeah, well, that also sounded really miserable.

“We still have no source for the broadcast,” said Cyborg. “No anomalies. Nothing in the far reaches of the solar system. I have no idea where they are. For all we know, they’re on Tantala. Wherever that is.”

Having anticipated that any screen that could display proper video may be taken over, the Justice League had moved quickly to secure some antique methods of displaying or printing data so they could still interact with their computers. Even the most basic of e-ink screens they had tried still displayed video of the arena. Their only reprieve was in small screens, so long as there was a larger screen present displaying the broadcast. Even some of the larger phone screens were unusable. Still, Cyborg was the only one, now, who could efficiently process significant amounts of information at once.

“I cannot sense them in the Sol system,” said J’onn from Metropolis, where he was already masquerading as Superman.

“It’s another week until we can expect to have a Green Lantern in this system,” said Wally, stopped somewhere in Cairo. “But apparently, we’ll have months to figure this out.”

“We are not waiting a week to get them back,” Batman growled. “Have we located Captain Marvel?”

“His communicator is still offline, as of the countdown reaching zero,” said Oracle, sounding entirely vexed with what her systems had been reduced to.

Had he been removed from the playing board for some reason? Why, when the man had been as stymied as everyone else by what was going on.

“Have we identified the two unknowns?” 

“Nothing popped on our own databases,” said Cyborg. “I’ve been broadening the search more and more, but nothing so far.”

“We might not need to find them,” said Diana. “Hopefully their loved ones will be reaching out to us to help.”

“Sure, them and thousands of other people trying to reach us upset about what’s going on,” said Cyborg. “But I’ve just got a hit on the little one, from the NCMEC database.”

Bruce considered, the boy being listed with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children may be a helpful lead, but it was not promising.

They were interrupted from discussing further, as the scene on the screen changed.

“The festivities will begin shortly. But first, I think our contestants should get to know each other, don’t you think?”

Geez, this crowd would cheer for anything, Clark thought, as trumpets played to a crescendo and the world went white once more.

They were alone, ostensibly. Up in one corner of the room they found themselves in was a small projection showing more shots of people around the world watching them.

“Maybe we should all have a seat,” said Clark.

There were comfy stuffed chairs behind each of them, still arranged facing each other as they had been in the arena.

“Oh, sweet,” said the little one, who looked very much homeless, darting a hand out to the table between them, piled with snacks, bottles of water, sodas, and beers. The kid grabbed a moon pie before he sat down, already opening the packaging.

“We don’t know if that’s safe,” said Clark, holding out a cautioning hand.

“Nothing’s safe,” said the kid, biting into his treat. “Apparently we’ll be here for months. You looking to not eat anything for that long?” 

Clark sighed and looked to Tim.

“Mr. Drake-Wayne,” said Clark. Their secret identities hadn’t been revealed so far, and he wasn’t going to give them away if he could help it. “I wish we were meeting again under better circumstances.”

Tim shook his hand. “Yeah, I, uh, did not have this on my bingo card. We should probably stock up, while we’re here, by the way,” he noted, grabbing a water bottle and putting it in the inner pocket of his suit jacket as they both sat down.

“You two know each other?” asked the older of the two mystery boys, starting to grab his own snacks. “And, wait, Drake-Wayne? Like, CEO of Wayne Enterprises, Drake-Wayne?”

“CEO? What?” asked the kid, eyeing Tim skeptically with a mouth full of moon pie.

“I am Tim Drake-Wayne,” said Tim. “And, yes, I’m the CEO of Wayne Enterprises.”

“But you’re like, ten,” said the kid who was about that age.

“I’m sixteen,” said Tim. “Meanwhile, this is Clark Kent. He’s a reporter with the Daily Planet. He’s met professionally with myself, and other members of my family on a few occasions.”

“Wait, Clark Kent like Louis Lane’s husband?” asked the little one.

Clark about beamed at him. “Exactly like Louis Lane’s husband.” 

“Any of her pulitzer prize winning rub off on you?” the kid asked.

“I’d like to think so,” said Clark, his estimations of the kid rising. “And who might you be?”

“I’m Billy,” said Billy. “Okay, okay, but wait. You’ve got black hair and blue eyes, and you’re from Metropolis,” he said, pointing.

“Yes,” said Clark, not particularly liking where this was going.

“I’ve got black hair and blue eyes, and I’m from Fawcett City,” said Billy.

They nodded at him.

“And you’ve got black hair and blue eyes, and you’re from Gotham,” he said, pointing at Tim.

“Right,” Tim said slowly.

Clark saw Tim and the yet unnamed kid furrow their eyes at Billy.

“These aliens are so dumb,” said Billy. “They think you’re Superman, you’re Batman, and I’m Captain Marvel.”

This kid.

“That’s absurd,” said Clark, “but it also makes a weird amount of sense?”

“Actually,” said Tim, “no one knows what Batman’s eye color is. He keeps his eyes behind some sort of opaque covering.”

Billy waved this away. “At this point, they probably think it’s a prerequisite.” He turned to the odd boy out. “So, what about you?”

“Uh, I’m Danny. Fenton. I’m from Amity Park.”

“Never heard of it,” said Billy. 

“Most people haven’t,” said Danny. “We are the most haunted town in America, though.”

It certainly wasn’t ringing any bells with Clark, though he smiled at the silly claim to fame.

“I don’t suppose you have a black haired, blue eyed super hero in Amity?” Tim asked dryly. 

“Nah, our guy’s got white hair and green eyes,” said Danny. “You want black hair and blue eyes, my dad’s one of the town’s mad scientists. Some might even call him powerfully dangerous.”

Well, that was a very interesting claim. Under different circumstances, Clark might think he was just a teenager being outrageous on purpose, but given that Clark was Superman, and Tim was Red Robin…

“But, powerfully dangerous?” asked Tim.

“To ghosts like Phantom, yeah,” the kid said uncomfortably. “To say nothing of the property damage from my parents’ hunts.”

There was more trading of glances.

“Is Phantom your town superhero?” asked Clark.

“Mm-hm,” said Danny. “Plus Red Huntress, but Phantom’s been around the longest.”

“And they’re ghosts?” asked Tim.

“Just Phantom is,” said Danny. “Red Huntress uses tech. And Phantom does end up handling most of the ghosts that make trouble in Amity.”

“There’s ghosts making actual trouble in Amity?” asked Clark. 

Deadman was a particularly powerful ghost, but he couldn’t physically interact with the world, and his ability to possess others was supposed to be pretty unique to him.

“Now and then,” said Danny.

“I’ve never heard anything about this,” said Clark.

“Yeah, the rest of the world tends to ignore Amity, for the most part. Except for the Guys in White.”

“The Guys in White?” asked Billy.

“Technically, they’re called the Ghost Investigation Ward, but they wear white suits, so… Anyway, they’re the government organization that’s been hunting down, experimenting on, and exterminating ghosts. Or, at least trying to.”

Clark shared an uneasy glance with Tim. Given the circumstances, they couldn’t just discount everything Danny was saying, but…

“That’s super against the Meta Protection Acts,” said Billy.

“Sure, but the Anti-Ecto acts give them a carve out. It’s super messed up. They say ghosts are ‘non-sentient’ and can’t think or have emotions or feel pain, when it’s super obvious that that’s not true even at a cursory glance! If you spend even just five minutes with a ghost, you’ll realize that they’re just another kind of person. An alien kind of person, sure, but that’s no reason to treat them like they’re a virus to be eradicated.”

“Well,” said Clark, “the Justice League should probably look into all of that.”

“Hey, yeah. I suppose they’re probably all watching this, too.”

Somehow, Clark doubted the kid hadn’t figured that out before he’d gone on his little rant.

“Wait, are you getting service here?” Billy asked, having noticed Tim staring at his phone.

“Uh, sort of,” said Tim, looking positively spiteful at the device in his hand. “Any time I try to do something requiring a connection, all it does is switch to showing a feed of social media posts about what’s going on, from maybe every social media network in the world? It’s um…I only speak a handful of these languages.”

“Oh, only a handful?” asked Danny. 

Clark pulled out his own phone, showing full bars, and saw a similar feed when he tried to send a message to Perry. He wanted to pull out his Justice League communicator, but he was planning to keep it hidden until he wasn’t under surveillance. He had it set to play alerts inaudible to the human ear, and the fact that it hadn’t chimed once since he’d gotten here probably meant he wouldn’t be able to connect to anyone, anyways. 

“Aw, man, I left my phone on the dining table,” said Danny.

“Might be for the best,” said Tim. “How about you, Billy, is that your phone?”

Tim nodded to the faint lump in Billy’s pocket. The kid’s hand covered it.

“It’s an old Nokia,” he said. “I don’t think it’ll be good for anything.”

At Billy’s evasiveness, Clark let his curiosity, and the fact they were in a high stakes situation, win over, and he used his x-ray vision to take a peak.

What the hell was the kid doing with a Justice League communicator? If he couldn’t feel his own in his pocket, and if Billy hadn’t been at least three feet away from him this entire time, he’d have thought the kid had lifted it. He cast a glance at Tim, and noted he still had his, tucked away.

Could Billy be a sidekick, who’d happened to be holding his mentor’s communicator when he was abducted?

He shouldn’t be. Clark was supposed to be aware of every Justice League member’s sidekicks. Especially the young ones. Billy didn’t match any of their descriptions. Black hair and blue eyes aside, he wasn’t a Bat. And, who in the Justice League would have a sidekick running around looking homeless? It didn’t make any sense. 

Clark took another glance at the device, wondering if some toy maker had made a toy communicator patterned from the real thing. But, no. That was definitely a Justice League communicator. No wonder Billy didn’t want to show it off, but why did he have it?!

“So,” he said. “In case the aliens haven’t mistaken us for our hometown superheroes, or menaces, any ideas on what might have made them choose you?”

There was an awkward silence. At this point, Clark wasn’t expecting any honest answers, just like he wasn’t planning to say he was Superman. Still, it would seem weird if they didn’t discuss it.

“I’ll admit it,” Billy finally said, “I am Captain Marvel.” Clark blinked at him, but the kid scoffed and rolled his eyes. “No, dude, I’m like, eleven.”

“Alright,” said Clark, for the moment really hoping that that was a joke.

He really hoped they hadn’t let a ten-year-old onto the Justice League.

He considered, though, that the ‘show’ might already be rigged in Billy’s favor, if Billy had the stamina of Atlas already. 

“Got any clues for yourself?” asked Danny.

“The pen is mightier than the sword?” Clark volunteered.

“Hmm,” said Billy.

“I guess I’ve picked up a little mad science from my parents, helping in their lab,” said Danny. “But if that was a qualifier, it would be them, here, not me.”

“Got any mad science tech on you that might be helpful?” asked Tim.

“Nah,” said Danny, his unusually low heart rate rising, his pores opening. Clark gave him an x-ray once over. In spite of the tells, though, he really didn’t seem to have anything. 

Wait…

Clark refocused….Was that…a high tech thermos next to the kid’s spleen?! There was also a thumb drive in his left thigh, and loose change in his hip.

What?!

“Pretty sure the only powerfully dangerous person in the room here is the billionaire CEO, who wore a suit to the apocalypse,” Billy was saying.

“I mean, I was at work, making sure our plants and offices were shut down safely, and our employees could get home safely,” said Tim. “I recognize that I am relatively powerful, in my position, but I’d note that Wayne Enterprises has made significant progress in meeting its goals for ethical business practices, philanthropy, eco-friendly manufacturing, and workforce quality of life.”

“Is Wayne Enterprises sponsoring this game show?” asked Billy. “What’s happening right now?”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Tim. “I’m just saying, if you’re looking for a powerfully dangerous businessperson, well, I won’t name any names, but I doubt that I’d be your best shot.”

“You can name names,” said Billy, who Clark could already tell was a bit of a shit-stirrer.

“Please don’t forget we’re all constantly on camera,” said Tim.

“I didn’t forget, I was just hoping you had,” said Billy.

“We’re going to have to rely upon each other,” said Clark. 

Three heads turned to face him.

“I’m the adult in the room. I’m going to do everything I can to look out for you boys, but for the time being, we’re all we have.”

“And we’ll all make sure to look out for you, Billy,” said Tim.

“Screw you, I can look out for myself,” said Billy.

“Man,” said Danny, “I hope we’re all actually really suited for whatever stupid challenges they have in store for us, because they definitely made it sound like the stakes are stupid high.”

“I won’t pretend to understand what criteria they’ve used to choose us,” said Clark. “If there was any criteria at all, other than, apparently, black hair and blue eyes. Whether they’ve inexplicably mistaken us for our hometown heroes, or menaces, or what. We’ll take things as they come, and we’ll figure it out. And, in the meantime, we’ll take care of each other.”

“A beautiful sentiment!” the announcer suddenly called out, before white once more took over his vision. “But can they live by it?”

“We’re suddenly getting inundated with reports of further disappearances,” said Cyborg.

“Where?” asked Batman.

“Everywhere.”

“Thank you for sending them over here, our cleric host. I, your cleric game master, will take it from here, for the moment. All glory to Antantlous! Contestants! Are you ready to play! A! Game!”

The music now was…classic rock?

The four of them shared a look with each other before looking back at the ‘game master.’ 

They had a similar coloring to the host, but with different patterns of scaling. Their regalia, as well, seemed in the same theme but more simple.

“If we have to,” said Clark.

Danny wondered what would have happened if he had said ‘no.’ 

“You don’t!” said the game master with good cheer, as though to answer. “Just know that your inaction may well doom thousands of lives by the time two hours are up.”

Well.

Who could say no to that?

They were standing on what seemed to be the same open field, the stands off in the distance. Except there was a massive structure now, opposite to them from where Antantlous sat. It seemed simple in its basic form, all right angles and straight edges. There were also ornate decorations in the form of paintings, reliefs, and what looked like gold filigree and inset gems. On the wall facing them, there was a large open rectangular entryway, with no apparent door.

“Hey, where’s my water?” Tim asked suddenly. 

Danny checked his own pockets, and found the cola and water he’d tucked away were gone. His chips were still there, so…

That was a trial. Chips, with nothing to wash them down with.

“Two hours to save the hostages,” said the game master, as though Tim hadn’t said anything. “Perhaps some of them may be your neighbors. Perhaps you’ll find one of them to be your future soul mate! Or, it may well be they are every one of them a perfect stranger to you, with no impact on your life whatsoever. Go on, and try to save them. However, you’ll have to enter this maze, first, and reach its end, before you’ll have the chance. Your time starts…NOW!”

“Billy Batson,” Cyborg said as the four abductees, ’contestants,’ approached the maze, and the announcer gave a running commentary. Cyborg pulled out a transparent overlay he had just printed and placed it on the antique overhead projector; the kid’s missing poster. “A runaway foster child from Fawcett, Pennsylvania, eleven years old. Missing for the last year and a half. Or…estimated as eleven years old.”

“Estimated?” asked Batman.

“Records show he was found alone at a fair when he was about four years old. He’s never been fully identified. Even the name Batson is from the hospital he was cleared at before being taken into foster care. Batson Memorial Hospital. And, while his original legal name is likely William, he only knew his name as Billy, so that’s what’s on his provisional birth certificate.”

“Any indications of what could make him ‘powerfully dangerous’ asked Green Arrow. 

“None,” said Cyborg.

“There might not be anything,” said Hawkman. “I mean, I get Superman. But Red Robin? He has no abilities to single him out. No offense,” he said as an aside to Bruce.

Offense very much taken.

“I would think we have all learned not to underestimate Red Robin,” said Wonder Woman. “It would indicate, though, that we are not necessarily looking for meta, magical, or alien abilities.”

“Red Robin has training, though,” said Bruce. “Resources. Connections. Experience.”

“Perhaps we’re looking at a selection that has been diversified,” said Flash, his location pinging from Cairo. “Superman has incredible physical prowess. Red Robin has incredible skills in deduction, strategy, engineering, leadership. I think, if we want to figure this out, we’ll need to think about other ways in which a person can be powerful.”

“Or, we could be looking at potential, here,” said Green Arrow. “The kid may be powerless now, but have the potential to become something incredible.”

How on earth would something like that be quantified? To say nothing of the fact that a child could have all the potential in the world, but have that potential lie fallow due to lack of nurturing. 

Still. “The announcer indicated they are currently powerfully dangerous,” said Bruce. "Assuming we can take their word for it, and discount the possibility of mistranslation, the ‘potential’ argument may not hold up.”

They mulled that over a moment, watching as Clark began leading the children through the maze, doubtless making liberal use of his x-ray vision.

“Constantine, we really have nothing on this Antant-” Flash started to say over the comm before Constantine interrupted him.

“Stop saying their name! Are you trying to give them even more power? I don’t care how we do it, but we need to spread the word that people cannot be saying his name over and over again as they marvel at his great deeds. If we could get everyone to just collectively stop watching the broadcast, that would be great too, but god knows we’re never going to achieve that.”

“We really have nothing on this alien god?” asked Flash.

“It’s sweet you’d think I’d randomly have encyclopedic knowledge of gods from other bloody worlds, who shouldn’t ever need to be the slightest consideration on my radar. I’ve got nothing for you.”

“Alright, well, are there any gods that we can call upon to help us deal with this?” asked Green Arrow. “I mean, hypothetically this guy’s playing in a bunch of other gods’ sand boxes.”

“It’s not promising,” said Zatanna.

“The Norse pantheon’s had its collective foot in the grave these last few centuries. The Greco/Roman pantheon’s been practically dormant for longer, content to exert their influence through the Champion and the Amazons, never mind that they seem to have just poofed that Champion out of existence as soon as they got here. Most of the pantheons around the world are similarly dormant.”

“Judeo/Christian?” asked Bruce.

“Oh, the god that doesn’t want anyone to say their name, or worship idols of them? Nah, at best we could get some devout together and call on some angels or saints, but this is a little above their weight class.”

“J-Jesus?” Green Arrow asked a little tentative.

“Oh, you want to bring about the apocalypse now? Let’s see, we could look at some of the Incan, Mayan, Aztec pantheons, but I don’t think you want to make the sacrifices needed to call on them. Going to North America, I’m not as familiar with their gods and spirits, but I wouldn’t be hopeful.”

“Hindu?” asked Hawkman.

“You want to tell ‘em, love?” 

Zatanna sighed and placed a transparent email printout on the overhead. “This is a message I received from a contact I have in India,” she explained. “They tried. They mobilized three Avatars to try to put a stop to this. They’re not really sure what happened. The Avatar’s are MIA.”

“What about the Egyptian gods?”

“If we had a pantheon for you, we’d have bloody well said so,” said Constantine.

“Okay,” said Green Arrow, “maybe… someone like Babba-”

“Don’t say her name!” Zatanna and Constantine both cried out.

“Never say her name,” said Constantine.

“I don’t know if she could, but I don’t want to see what happens if she swallows another god,” said Zatanna.

“Let’s let sleeping witches lie, shall we?” said Constantine.

The table fell silent for a moment.

“There’s a social worker from Fawcett that’s been trying to call us,” said Oracle.

“Let’s take the call,” said Bruce.

“So, there’s the left-hand trick,” said Danny as they approached the maze. The closer they got to the entrance, the more the side of the structure took up the entirety of his vision.

A valid strategy. Basically, if you just kept following the wall on your left-hand side (or right-hand side, you just had to pick one), then you will eventually get to the exit of the maze, no matter how many twists or turns you had to take first.

“Sure,” said Clark, “assuming a more traditional maze and no magical trickery, that should get us out, eventually. I’m worried about the two hour time limit, though. This looks like it’s a really big maze.”

“You got another way through?” asked Billy.

“Well, I’ve found I’ve got something of an intuition for mazes. I think I could get us through faster.”

“Yeah, but we can’t see it from the top,” said Danny, as they stopped to look over the entrance.

“Not the mazes you solve with a pencil,” said Clark. “I grew up doing corn mazes. I’ve solved some pretty big ones, in my time. If you boys would trust me to lead you through?”

Corn mazes, Tim’s foot. Clark was going to use his x-ray vision.

“Maybe we should split up?” said Danny. “One team does it my way, one team does it Clark’s? Gives us the best chance of getting a team out to…somehow save thousands of lives.”

“I think you’re all forgetting something,” said Tim.

“What’s that?” asked Clark.

“It’s really boring, watching someone run a maze. Unless it’s not just a maze.”

Clark nodded. “We should stick together.” 

“Let’s follow Clark’s lead,” said Tim. “It’s risky, but I think he’s right that the maze is likely too big to traverse in two hours, otherwise.”

“I hope you’re really good at mazes,” Danny said to Clark. 

“Me, too,” said Clark.

“Come on,” said Billy. “The faster we start, the faster we’re done.”

“Hold up,” said Tim. He slipped off his jacket, and then his vest. The later of which he handed to Billy.

“Here, put this on under your sweater.”

“Uh, why?” asked Billy.

“It’s knife proof. We don’t know what we’ll find in there.” He handed his jacket to Danny.

“What, is this bulletproof?” Danny asked.

“Bullet resistant,” said Tim. “And knife proof. I’d give it to Billy, but it would bunch up enough on him to hamper his movements.”

“And why don’t you need to be bullet resistant or knife proof?” asked Billy.

“Who said I’m not?” asked Tim. 

Danny reached out and tapped a knuckle against Tim’s chest.

“Is that body armor under, what I’m assuming is a knife proof dress shirt?”

“Get shot by a sniper once, shame on them,” said Tim. “Get shot by a sniper twice, shame on me.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s still shame on them,” said Billy.

“You’re sure this thing is bullet proof?” asked Danny, shaking out the jacket a little before putting it on. “It doesn’t feel bullet proof.”

“Bullet resistant,” said Tim. “It’s the latest in Wayne Tech. It’s already being used by a number of high profile individuals, and we hope to have more economical and casual options for people living in high conflict areas soon.”

“High conflict areas like Gotham?” asked Danny.

“Absolutely,” said Tim.

“And here we have another Wayne Enterprises commercial,” said Billy.

 Tim grinned sheepishly as he pulled off his tie to tuck into his pocket. It wasn’t exactly fashionable, but he popped his collar, the better to protect his neck.

Together they walked through the front entrance of the maze, to a great fanfare of music and a light show, Clark leading the way. The man made a show of considering every fork and intersection. It was only a few turns in, though, before there was a pit of fire between them and the rest of the maze. 

Dun! Dun! Went the soundtrack, as the lighting changed with the mood.

“Let’s turn back,” said Danny.

Only for a pit of fire to be between them and the way back.

“Or not…”

Tim held his hand out over it. It wasn’t too bad. The fire was deep down the pit, and there was a breeze coming from somewhere keeping too much heat from accumulating. 

They all considered each other. Clark, of course, could vault the thing without issue. Tim could manage it, maybe just barely. It was Danny and Billy, Tim doubted. Not that they couldn’t have their own abilities that would help them get across, but at a glance, they weren’t exactly athletes. 

“I could jump it,” said Tim.

“I could, too,” said Clark. 

“Uhhh,” said Billy.

“How about this,” said Tim. “Clark and I stand on either side of the hallway. Danny, you come running, and as you leap, Clark and I give you a boost.”

Worst came to worst, Clark would save them, whatever the consequences.

“And I’ll make sure Billy gets over okay, when you send him,” said Danny, nodding.

Billy grumbled a little, probably at the idea he’d need Danny’s help, but his gaze was on Clark, considering, before he nodded. 

“No sense in waiting,” said Danny, walking back down the hall to give himself some distance.

Tim and Clark took up positions, and Danny started running. Tim’s assessment the kid wasn’t very athletic seemed pretty accurate, his form was very much teenager-being-forced-to-run-the-mile, and Tim figured Clark might need to put a little more oomph into his shove. Danny, though, didn’t falter as he came to the precipice and leapt, Tim and Clark’s hands coming behind him to give him more lift and speed. 

And…the guy’s ark through the air was not quite natural. As though there was another force slowing his descent while he was in free fall. 

As though the guy had not quite trusted their push, and used just a touch of flight ability to make sure he got across.

Between them, the flames from the pit suddenly shot up dramatically, before dying back down.

Trading a glance with Clark, Tim was pretty sure the man had caught the same thing. The question was, how obvious was it to the viewers back on Earth.

“Alright, Billy,” said Tim. “You’re up. We’ve got this.”

“Jump like you’re going to barrel right into me,” said Danny. “Don’t worry about knocking me over.”

 Billy, already standing about where Danny had been, seemed to be sucking on his teeth as he took a few more steps back. For a second, Tim thought he was going to back out, but then he started running, his gaze on Danny, who was holding his arms out just a step back from the ledge.

This time, Tim was sure Clark used just a smidge of super strength, making up for Billy’s bad form and low momentum, sending Billy right into Danny’s chest, before another flare of flames. The boys almost did fall backwards, but Danny managed to plant a foot and keep upright.

“Alright!” Danny crowed, ruffling Billy’s hair. Billy was perhaps too high on adrenaline to rebuff the condescending gesture.

“Alright, Tim,” said Clark, “I think I’ll still give you a bit of a boost.” 

“Much appreciated,” said Tim. The last thing he needed was to make it look like he had a lot of experience leaping over large gaps.

Billy was pretty sure Clark would have saved him, before Billy would have needed to call on the power of Shazam. Just like he’d been pretty sure Clark would have pushed him far enough to make it without needing to be saved. It was just…kind of hard to have that kind of faith when he was just Billy.

Tim came over, putting on a show of nervousness, with Clark giving him a boost he probably didn’t need.

“Phew,” said Danny, clapping his hand on Tim’s shoulder after making sure Tim was steady on his feet. “This is actually working.”

Was Danny the only one who’d gone into this without knowing it was basically completely safe? He’d still gone first, taking Clark and Tim’s help on faith.

“You got this, old man?” Billy called back.

Clark made a show of considering the distance, and looking a little nervous.

“We’ve got you,” said Danny. “We’ll make sure you don’t fall in.”

“Just don’t let me barrel into you,” said Clark. “I’m a little heavier than Billy.”

Billy rolled his eyes as Danny, looking a little nervous, took up a position just to the side of where Clark would be aiming for.

From Billy’s perspective, it was all very anti-climactic, no matter the final burst of flame and the soundtrack that was doing a good job of keeping up with them, but both Danny and Tim hooted and hollered once Clark was safely across.

“Hello? Oh, please tell me I’m speaking to an actual person.”

“You’re speaking with Batman and Wonder Woman,” Bruce said by way of telling the others to butt out.

“O-oh! Um.”

“Are you Billy Batson’s social worker?”

“I am! I- I am. For what it’s worth. It’s been a year since I’ve seen hide or hair of him. Until today. I’m CSW Maggie Bartlett.”

“What can you tell us about him?” asked Wonder Woman.

“Oh. Well, he’s a good kid. He’s a runaway, which you probably already know, but he’s a good kid. He’s just had a rough time in foster care.”

“What happened to him in foster care?” asked Bruce.

“Ah, well…I don’t think you need to know that, and it’s confidential,” she said, positively timid. “But suffice to say- Did they just throw my kid?!”

Bruce, who had watched relatively unconcernedly as Superman had launched the kid precisely across the gap, said, “Suffice to say?”

“I…Just. He ran away for the reasons a lot of kids run away. He started, just turning up at friends’ houses, and getting sent back to foster care. Eventually, though, he managed to completely disappear. I’ve been worried to death for him. He’s way too young to be on his own. I mean, any kid is, but at ten?”

“Wouldn’t a child as young as Billy typically have been adopted, if they had been abandoned?” asked Bruce.

“Not right away, when we don’t know for sure that he was abandoned. There was an awful lot of searching, before he could be declared free for adoption. And, then, once he realized we were trying to give him a forever home…Well, six year olds don’t exactly have a say in the matter, but if they’re determined not to be adopted, they can make it awfully hard to find a family willing to adopt them. The thing was, the State may have given up on finding his parents, but Billy, I’m sure to this day, remained convinced that his mother was out there, looking for him, and he needed to look for her in turn.”

“Hn,” was Bruce’s response. Unless the mother was dead or completely incapacitated, it would be nearly impossible for them to have not found each other, so long as she was looking. If she were in a coma in a hospital, the state of Pennsylvania likely would have found her anyway. If she was a Jane Doe corpse, the state would have found her. If she had been abducted, Billy would have been linked to her disappearance.

“I know,” she said. “But it’s not exactly easy to convince a child that the most likely thing to have happened is his mother abandoned him.”

“Can you think of any reason Billy would be considered powerful?” asked Wonder Woman.

“No! He’s just a kid. None of this makes any sense. He’s just a little boy. A resilient one, but…Not that I’d be able to tell you if he were a meta without a court order.”

“Has anything odd ever happened around him. Or to him?” asked Bruce.

“Aside from being abandoned at a fair? No! Or…”

“What is it?”

“Just, one odd thing.”

“Go on,” said Bruce. 

“Well, he couldn’t take all of his things, when he ran. We had a number of his belongings in boxes, here at my office. Except, they went missing from the storage room, one evening. And, there’s nothing logged on the keypad. Nothing caught on cameras. His things just disappeared.”

“There were no leads?” asked Bruce.

“No, and it was fully investigated. Not that there was anything particularly valuable that had gone missing, but the security breach it represented…”

“Has Billy ever been hospitalized?” asked Wonder Woman, “been in any odd accidents? Exposed to any odd substances?” 

“Not that’s been documented,” said Ms. Bartlett.

“The boy, Danny, mentioned his own parents were ‘mad scientists,’” said Wonder Woman. “Did any of Billy’s foster parents have any kind of laboratory in their home?”

“I mean…Yeah, that wouldn’t pass a home inspection,” said Ms. Bartlett.

“Practice occult traditions?” asked Bruce.

“Not that I can think of?” said Ms. Bartlett. “I mean, we don’t necessarily have a database of our foster parents’ religious beliefs, but no, nothing’s sticking out to me. Billy certainly never disclosed anyone… sacrificing any chickens, or laying him on an alter, or anything like that. I mean, I understand that you’re trying to figure out if he has some sort of super power, but…Billy’s certainly had a difficult time in our foster care system, but very much nothing that shouts ‘super power origin story.’ There’s…there’s nothing dangerous about Billy.”

She sounded close to tears.

“We’re doing everything we can to bring him back,” said Bruce.

“Do you even know where they are?” she asked.

“We are still figuring things out,” said Wonder Woman. “If you think of anything, I want you to give us a call, alright? We’ll make sure your calls come through.”

There were just a few more pleasantries before the call was ended.

Green Arrow let out a breath. “Well, he sounds like a hard luck kid, but I don’t know that we got anything out of that. If he wasn’t up against Superman and Red Robin, I’d think he was just an average street kid.”

But he was up against Superman and Red Robin. And, for eleven years, the boy had stayed off their radar. The question was, would he give himself away, or would he keep his secrets and damn the consequences.

“Cyborg, Flash, I would like to ask that you be available to help initiate my family’s Ghost Protocol, should the need arise.”

Billy huffed as he watched the others debate. They’d come to a hallway that had suddenly been cut off by doors slamming shut on either side of them. The way through was very simple. There was a pingpong ball at the bottom of a hole, too narrow to get a hand down. They’d had Billy try, since his hands were the smallest, and sure enough, Billy wasn’t actually a baby! The door could only be opened if the pingpong ball was placed into the pingpong shaped hole there. 

Then they’d all pooled together what items they had in their pockets (the one’s they’d been willing to reveal). Apparently, Tim had a compact taser, citing the number of times he’d apparently been kidnapped. He also had a freaking pocket sized rebreather, various anti-toxin auto-injectors, a tourniquet, and a multi-tool, because Gotham. No one had chewing gum or a straw, which seemed to be a sticking point. They’d tried a few things with belts, and were now examining the door to see if they could trick it, somehow. Billy sighed, very long suffering. He had hoped someone else would come up with the obvious solution, and thus take responsibility for completing the task. Alas, no one else had figured it out.

This was why they’d had their beverages taken away from them, so they’d have to get a little undignified. Must be more entertaining. 

There were a couple of things Billy could do with magic, but he didn’t want to reveal he had magic, if he could help it. Meanwhile, he had seen the conflicted look on Clark's face, as he was doubtless thinking of the things he could do, whether it was some weird breath thing, or just punching through the door. 

Billy knew how to do this without revealing anyone’s powers, though. He stepped up to the hole, and was about to unzip his pants, when he realized, suddenly, that no, he didn’t have to be the one to do this. He may just be Billy right now, but he was still a part of a team. 

“Hey, Clark, you’re not actually going to let a child pee in a hole live on intergalactic TV, are you?” asked Billy, because he was a little jerk and couldn’t ask an adult nicely for something, without a little emotional blackmail. 

He should really work on that. 

The conversation behind him ground to a halt. 

“I, what? Oh…”

“No, it’s fine,” said Billy, unzipping his pants. 

“Stop!” said Clark, so Billy stopped. “No, I’m not letting an eleven year old pee in front of an audience.” He huffed. “This really is the only way, huh.”

“That’s why those little freaks took away our water? Seriously?!” Danny demanded. 

“Yup,” said Tim, sounding peeved. 

“Oh, they wanted entertainment.”

Clark sighed. “I guess I’m doing this.”

Billy felt intensely guilty, but zipped up and let Clark switch places with him. 

“Whelp, I guess we’ll just have to give them a better show than a grown man peeing in a hole,” said Danny. 

“Oh?” said Billy, game, but not sure what Danny was getting at. 

“Oh dangerous and powerful Billy! I challenge you to a fight to your doom!”

“What?”

Danny about tackled Billy, starting to wrestle and tickle him. 

“Ha- I didn’t- ha! Sign up for this!”

Billy really wasn’t a fan of what was going on. Danny wasn’t exactly some old creep, but he was still bigger and stronger than Billy. 

“Tim- ha! Tim, tap me out!” He said, reaching out his hand. 

Tim, grinning though he was at Billy’s plight, was quick to slap his hand. Danny, respecting the implied rules, was quick to drop Billy, turning to face off with Tim. Red Robin had him pinned on the ground in about a second, which Danny clearly had not been expecting.

“Billy, you ready for some payback?”

Billy grinned, and knelt down to get at Danny’s ribs. 

“Wait! Ha! Two on one! Ha! Two on one! Cheaters!”

It went on for a little too long. 

“How long have you- Ha ha! Standing there?”

The boys finally broke apart, seeing Clark watching them with a smirk, ping pong ball in hand. 

“You boys looked like you were having fun,” he said. 

“Ugh,” said Danny. “Some thanks I get.”

“Sorry, Danny. Thank you for being a distraction.”

Danny pulled in a breath through his nose and let it out as an aggrieved hum. The effect was a little lost, though, for how out of breath he was. 

Clark slotted the ball into the door, which opened with a fanfare of trumpets. Billy rolled his eyes. 

Tim was checking his phone. “According to the feed, we’re in the clear, vis-a-vis anything that shouldn’t be broadcast.”

“Oh good, so they do draw the line somewhere,” said Danny. “Hey! My cola’s back.”

He pulled the bottle from his pocket to take a drink. 

“Also,” said Tim, “there’s reports of people disappearing in flashes of white light. Estimates are all over the place, but it seems like it’s in the thousands.”

The mood sobered. 

“Well, shoot,” said Danny. 

“We’ll save them,” said Clark with a little too much conviction for a mild mannered reporter. 

Tim put his phone away and patted his jacket pocket. “Here’s my water,” he said. “Clark, hold out your hands.”

Clark thanked Tim, and let him pour out some water so he could rinse off his hands. 

“And then they never spoke of it again,” said Billy. “Except to say that you wannabe Macguyvers are actually idiots.”

Clark sighed.

Once again, they found themselves trapped with doors shut on either end of the section of hallway they were in.

“What now?” asked Billy, the first to approach the pedestal that was in the middle of the room. Water was running down the sides from the top of it.

The only other distinguishing features in the room were on the doors, vertical strips that appeared to be progress bars of some sort, they were blinking red on the bottom.

“It’s a face,” was Billy’s pronouncement. “Filled with water.”

It was indeed the impression of a face in the top of the pedestal.

“We sure that’s water?” asked Tim, having approached it as well. He held his hand over it and wafted the air over the pedestal towards his face.

“I don’t smell anything.”

Danny stuck a finger in.

“Seems fine,” he said.

“Can you be a little more cautious?” asked Tim.

“We’re on a time crunch,” said Danny. And he’d been feeling it. There were people they would need to save, and a limited time to do it in. They had no idea how far through the maze they were, or if they were even going in the right direction. They couldn’t wait to touch everything with a ten foot pole. They'd wasted enough time on the ping-pong ball gimmick, when Danny could have just reached through the floor for it, and instead chose not to.

“Anyway,” said Tim. “Stop up the water, and press our face in?” He didn’t sound hopeful.

“We can try,” said Clark. 

But, sure enough, no mater how hard they tried, they couldn’t find a source where the water was coming out. It was seemingly generating spontaneously.

“Alright, I’m game,” said Clark. He seemed to be in line with Danny’s way of thinking, because he just leaned down and pressed his face into the water.

On the walls, the progress bar slowly climbed up, still red.

After a few moments, Clark picked his head back up.

“Anything?” he asked.

The progress bars had immediately gone back to zero.

“Someone’s going to need to hold their breath a while,” said Tim, looking at Clark.

This wasn’t a problem for Clark to solve, though.

“I can hold my breath three minutes, easy,” said Danny, before Clark could volunteer. More like ten minutes, easy, but three minutes was slightly less insane.

“You can?” asked Billy.

“I’ve got a naturally slow heart rate,” said Danny. 

“Okay,” said Tim, “but, I want you to hold my hand through the whole thing. I give your hand a squeeze, you squeeze it back, so I know you’re okay.”

Danny made a face. That wasn’t exactly needed, but okay.

“Sure,” he said.

“I’ll poke you in the ribs when the doors are open,” said Billy.

Danny gave him a flat look. “My ears’ll be above the water, ya dingus.”

“Suit yourself,” said Billy.

“I don’t think we got a good impression of how long it would take to open the doors,” Clark said, sounding a little worried.

“We’ll figure it out,” said Tim.

Danny took a breath, closed his eyes, and stuck his face in the fountain. He kind of regretted it, immediately, as water started running down the front of him.

Tim was quick to take his hand, even though there was no conceivable way for Danny to be in any kind of distress already. Danny squeezed his hand back like he was trying to dominate a handshake.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Tim.

Then, it was just a waiting game.

Until it wasn’t.

A little after Tim had said, “We’re about half-way,” there was a sudden rush of movement around Danny’s head, the splash of water, the clang of metal. Danny jolted, and his feet slipped on the wet marble floor, making him gag as his throat slammed painfully into the edge of the pedestal, losing a puff of air as he did so.

“Oh geez!” said Billy.

“We need to get him out of there,” said Clark.

Something had clamped over Danny’s head, keeping him stuck in the water.

Tim’s free hand grasped around Danny’s hip and held Danny steady. Danny squeezed Tim’s other hand firmly as he got his feet under him again.

“Danny, you’re okay?”

Danny squeezed his hand again. He was sure his eyes were watering, though with his face in the water there’d be no telling.

“He’s squeezing my hand,” said Tim. “One squeeze for yes, two for no. You’re okay?”

One squeeze.

He really wasn’t, though. It had been a real force of will to keep himself from immediately phasing through the trap. Over a year’s worth of instinct in not using his powers in his human form without checking the coast was clear, coming in clutch.

He was not strapped to a lab table. He could phase out any time he wanted. He could probably use ghost strength to bust out, if it came down to it. It would be stupid to do either, and reveal his powers. He was fine. He’d be let go once the doors were open.

Right? 

“The progress bar’s still moving,” said Billy.

“Alright,” said Clark. “Tim, keep an eye on Danny. Billy, start examining the walls and floor for anything irregular, anything that could be another puzzle. I’m going to start studying this contraption.”

“Still doing okay?” Tim asked.

Danny squeezed Tim’s hand again, very aware as Clark approached while Danny was trapped. 

Clark was trying to help. Danny wasn’t trapped. He could get out at any time. 

Except he couldn’t, because then his parents would know.

His heart rate wasn’t slow, now. But that was fine. He could still hold his breath for long enough.

“Hanging in there?” Tim asked him.

Danny squeezed his hand, then pulled his hand away to rub at his throat, as much as he could, before returning his hand to Tim.

“I’m not seeing anything,” said Billy.

He sounded a little frantic. How long had Danny been under, anyway? How was he supposed to know if he was holding his breath inhumanly long? Was he damned either way, showing off his ghost powers whether he busted himself out or not?

Three minutes wasn’t actually that out there, though. People could train themselves to hold it a lot longer. They had to prepare themselves for it, though. Danny had just stuck his face in. He had no idea how long this was supposed to last.

Should he look like he was struggling?

Would someone reveal a super power to bust him out if they thought he was struggling?

Would they keep their power a secret, and let Danny ‘drown.’

Danny started shifting his weight from foot to foot, sort of like he had to pee.

“Try not to move your muscles,” said Tim, setting his other hand on Danny’s back, rubbing it in a comforting way. “It’s only going to be a little longer.” 

Was that true? 

Danny did his best to hang as limply as he could. 

Tim squeezed his hand.

Danny squeezed back.

“So, I’m an amateur photographer,” said Tim. “I got my first camera when I was nine. Which is about when I started sneaking out to get pictures, around town. Got myself into so much trouble.”

Oh, so they were at the stage where Tim was talking about random things to keep Danny calm. It was embarrassing how much it helped. 

“It wasn’t just sneaking out, either, it was going places I shouldn’t to get the best pictures. Climbing places I shouldn’t have climbed. Anytime I got hurt, I’d have to take care of it myself so my parents wouldn’t find out.”

“How’d they find out, then?” asked Clark, still examining the cage. 

“Oh, they didn’t,” said Tim. “Almost over,” he told Danny. 

“For real this time,” Billy piped up. 

Danny squeezed Tim’s hand, but figured he should go back to pretending he was getting close to his limit, and started shifting his weight again. He was fine. He could keep going. How long had it been?

“So, said Tim, “when I said I got in trouble, I meant I got in peril. Got hurt or chased or mugged. But my parents never found out.”

“Were you very sneaky, or were they unobservant?” asked Clark. 

“A bit of both,” said Tim. 

“Really almost there,” said Billy. 

Danny brought his free hand up to feel around the cage, like he was thinking of busting it apart. He could bust it apart, right?

“Just a few more seconds, Danny,” said Tim. 

“Move your hand away from it, Danny,” said Clark. 

Danny move his hand away just before the thing sprung open. 

Jerking straight up, Danny started gasping for breath. 

He wasn’t sure if it was an act or not. 

“Holy crap,” he panted out. 

Tim and Clark both looked like they were ready to catch him if he fell.

“Danny, how about you sit down for a minute,” said Clark.

“Um, okay,” said Danny, and let Tim help him down to the ground, which, now he was sitting in the puddle of water that had been dribbling down his front.

 “Okay, that was insane,” said Billy. “I can say that, now that it’s over.”

“I didn’t realize you were waiting,” said Clark.

“Well, I didn’t want to freak Danny out,” said Billy.

“Already freaked out,” said Danny, starting to slow down his breathing to take deeper more even breaths. “How long even was that?” 

“Sorry, Danny. None of us were keeping track,” said Clark.

“Think I set a new record?” asked Danny.

“Maybe a personal one,” said Tim.

They were getting close to the exit, having passed through a number of dangerous or tricky obstacles. This was just ridiculous, though.

It was the stereotypical giant-blocks-falling-and-raising-back-up, and you have to get through without getting smashed. They went in pairs, this time, with Tim getting Billy through, and Clark escorting Danny through. Of course, they didn’t quite phrase it that way.

It was a simple pattern, one that was easy for Tim and Clark to parse; probably easy for Billy and Danny as well. Tim and Billy had gotten through without issue. It was as Clark and Danny were going through, though, that the pattern suddenly changed. 

“Woah!” Danny called out as they were about to be crushed.

They both tried to save each other, which was the problem, and the kid clearly had some manner of enhanced strength, which was about what messed Clark up for not expecting it. He was reasonably certain he could have gotten them both out and made it look completely natural, but instead his right foot was still in the strike zone. He was expecting his foot to break the stone, and reveal his invulnerability, but instead a cold feeling shot through him, and the stone passed through his heel.

“Whew,” said Danny. “Just got out by a hair.” 

He was looking at Clark just as consideringly as Clark was looking at him. He didn’t doubt the kid had felt a measure of Clark’s super strength, just as Clark had felt his, and, what? Density shifting? Intangibility? Add that to possible flight and an unusually long ability to hold his breath. Was the kid some long lost Martian, polymorphed as a human?

It wouldn’t quite make sense, though. Martian Manhunter was leagues stronger than Miss Martian, largely by virtue of his age and experience. Danny presumably was still an actual child. So, why would he be considered more powerfully dangerous than Martian Manhunter? To say nothing of the fact that, had Danny been a refugee from Mars since the genocide of the Green Martians, it was incredibly unlikely J’onn would not have noticed him on the planet by now.

Also, he didn’t think it was normal for a Martian to have a heartbeat so low. Or thermoses next to their spleens.

“You guys okay?” asked Billy, who had been handling this whole thing very well. It was clear he was nervous, but his nerves didn’t seem to be holding him back.

“Yeah, we’re good,” said Danny.

“Let’s move on,” said Clark.

“Let’s hope your intuition’s leading us where we need to go,” said Billy.

It had been a challenge just getting this far. A challenge, that was, to not reveal his powers. Superman could have gotten the boys through in seconds. Clark had to take each trial in their path one at a time, just barely able to get the kids through without injury.

Being Clark Kent was immeasurably important to him, but he very much did not relish needing to do the duties of Superman under the guise of a mild mannered journalist.

They were almost to the end, though. What they would need to do to get out, remained to be seen. There had certainly never been any indications of these different trials for Clark’s x-ray vision, until they were right upon them.

It was a sphinx, guarding the exit.

“I’m pretty sure this is a copyright issue,” said Billy.

“No more than Nintendo can sue for that last challenge,” said Tim.

“You will not leave here alive, unless you can answer my riddles three,” said the sphinx. The claws on their front paws were glowing a sickly shade of green, and there was definitely an unpleasant aura about it. Nothing kryptonite related, though. 

Clark was entirely certain he could take it in a fight; he’d just avoid whatever was going on with those claws.

Tim took a small step forward. “I’m game,” he said.

The sphinx smiled at him. “What can run but never walks, has a mouth but never talks, has a head but never weeps, has a bed but never sleeps?”

“Easy,” said Tim. “A river.”

“Ooohh,” said Billy after a moments consideration. Meanwhile, the green glow on the sphinx’s claws had dimmed.

“A woman shoots her husband, then holds him underwater for five minutes. Next, she hangs him. Right after, they enjoy a lovely dinner together. How is this possible?”

Tim smiled, as Danny leaned towards him and whispered, “It’s not that he’s a ghost, right?”

“No,” said Tim. “The answer is that she shot a photo of her husband, then developed the photo of him in a solution for five minutes, before hanging the picture to dry. The husband was alive the whole time.”

“Indeed.” Another step-down to the glow from the sphinx’s claws. “Lighter than what I am made of, more of me is hidden than is seen, pilot’s bane, a fragment far from home. What am I?”

“An iceberg,” Tim answered.

The glow completely died to nothing as the sphinx’s smile became a little more sinister. “Then you may yet survive my attack,” it said, taking an offensive stance, as the boss battle music started playing.

Was this how Clark was going to lose his secret identity?

Then Tim shoved his taser into Clark’s hand as he walked forward.

“Come at me, then!” Tim shouted, his arms out high. 

The sphinx charged at Tim.

Clark ran forward and to the side, leapt, jumped off the wall, and jabbed the taser into the back of the creature’s neck as it passed trying to get at Tim.

It fell to the ground, twitching, before it turned into purple smoke with a whoosh, dissipating across the floor.

Behind Tim, Billy had apparently been holding Danny back. Clark wondered what Danny would have done, if Tim and Clark had not dealt with the sphinx so quickly.

“You learn that in a corn maze?” asked Billy.

Clark was making a show of catching his breath and looking uncertain. “Well,” he said. “Maybe more, wrangling a bull. That was, uh. Tim, that was quick thinking.”

“I mean, you pulled it off,” said Tim.

“Were you going for another Wayne Enterprises body armor commercial?” Danny asked, actually sounding a little peeved. “It could have ripped you apart!”

“I was going for Clark taking it down before it could get to me,” said Tim.

Danny huffed.

“The important thing is, we’re all okay,” said Clark.

Walking outside, the game master was quick to join them as flares shot dramatically into the sky.

“Well, well!” they shouted. “You completed the maze in one hour and twenty-seven minutes! You’ve certainly got enough time left to save our hostages.”

“Where are they?” asked Clark, though the truth was he already knew the horrifying answer.

“Why, they’re just over there,” said the game master, pointing in the distance, where an enormous depression in the ground was only just visible.

“Let’s hurry,” said Clark. 

The four of them ran until the terrible visage became clear to the boys.

“That’s sick!” Tim growled out.

“Is that real?!” asked Billy.

“Ancients!” said Danny.

“Eight thousand Earthlings, down there,” said the game master, suddenly beside them once more.

The hole in the ground was deep and massive, with straight unclimbable edges. Inside were indeed eight thousand people. And below them, a force field was all that kept them from falling into a great roiling mess of shredding wheels, already at speed. The people were screaming and crying. Trying to climb out, and fighting to get to the walls. Already, people had been trampled. Clark could also see a couple of Atlanteans on the ground, clearly suffering from having been out of the water for too long.

“Eight thousand,” the game master said again.

“Let them go!” Danny said coldly. 

“It’s not much compared to the eight billion your planet holds,” the game master went on as if Danny hadn’t said anything. “Oh, it may be that someone down there is your neighbor, your friend, your lover. But, it’s only a one in a million chance.”

“How do we get them out?” Clark ground out.

He was fast enough to get them all out in under a half-hour, but he would need to make four thousand trips, carrying pairs of people, at half a second per trip. He didn’t have Flash’s Speed force to break physics. He could get them out, but not without killing them from accelerating and decelerating with them too quickly. Even if Danny and his hypothetical flight ability helped out, it was completely non-viable. 

“Oh, that’s easy,” said the game master. “Barely an inconvenience. But first! I would like to direct your attention to our left.

Clark looked. There was now a freestanding doorway about twenty feet away, complete with an ornate oak door.  

“That door will allow just one person to leave this game completely, back to their life with no further responsibility or danger.”

Clark, Tim, and Danny’s eyes all went to Billy. Billy’s eyes rolled at them.

“What’s the catch?” he asked.

“Well, if you would just look to your right,” the game master prompted.

Looking to their right, there were now four stone plinths set into the ground. The game master disappeared, but his voice remained.

“Stand with one of you on each plinth, at the same time, and everyone below will be returned to where we took them from. The door will leave with them, however.” 

“Did you take any of them from an airplane? Or a ship? From traffic?” asked Tim. “Because that’s liable to kill them if you send them back to those exact spots.

“They’ll be returned safely,” said the game master dismissively. “You have twenty eight minutes to decide, but, oh. It looks like they’re hurting themselves down there. The poor things. You should probably make up your minds soon; and be willing to enforce your will on the others should they disagree.”

“Boys, I can’t ask you to continue risking your lives,” said Clark, his focus back on the people down below. “But, if you stay with me, I promise you, I will do everything in my power-”

“Get over here, loser,” Billy hollered, “we’re saving the day.”

Clark looked over to see the boys were already running to the plinths.

“Ah,” said Clark, before he rushed over.

“Are you certain?” the game master asked as they neared the plinths. “I am not the game master for all of your upcoming trials, but I can promise you, they will be dangerous.”

“We’re not letting you eviscerate eight thousand people,” Danny said, his voice cutting as he took to his plinth.

Clark did not dignify the man with an answer. He burned to at least get Billy out, but at the cost of everyone below them…

One way or another, he would get Billy out of this. He’d get all of them out, whatever it cost him, personally. He stepped up just as Tim did. Billy had to give a little hop to get his foot on the platform. As he did so, there was a great shudder through the ground as the giant pit simply disappeared, and a grand fireworks display went off.

“And, with twenty-seven minutes to spare, our contestants have saved the lives of every single hostage!” declared the host, instead of the game master. “Because of the bravery and commitment of our contestants, Antantlous, all glory be, has healed all of the hostages' injuries. A wonderful game from our cleric game master.”

“All glory to Antantlous,” said the game master.

“And now, let’s get some comments from our contestants.”

“Hello!” cried a new Tantalan. “I am your cleric interviewer. All glory to Antantlous. Can I get a boo-yeah!”

None of them boo-yeah’d, but from the stands there was a roar of the cheer.

“Alright! Now, let’s start with our youngest competitor,” they said, walking towards Billy, who had jumped down from his plinth.

“So, Billy, how are you doing after our first game?”

Billy gave them a sour look. “Would be better if there weren’t any games.”

“Now, I understand you’ve been homeless this last year and a half. Actually, you were pretty hungry when you were sent to the green room, weren’t you?”

“I take care of myself,” Billy said evenly.

“It’s always so sad when a society can’t take care of its children,” said the interviewer. “Are you here to show why your society should invest in children like you?”

“What? I’m here because you abducted me!”

“Well, one wonders what a child with such power may do without the proper nurturing.”

Billy glowered at them. Clark decided to intervene.

“Well, I’d like to say that homelessness is a failing of society,” he said, stepping between the interviewer and Billy. “The homelessness of children all the more so. If I could just take a moment to advocate for housing first-”

“Oh, and you’re a family man, aren't you? Do you have anything to say to your loved ones back home?”

Clark gave a thin lipped smile. “That I love them very much, and I’m doing everything I can to come safely home to them.”

They turned away from him. Apparently they were only interested in asking hard hitting questions when they were questioning an eleven year old about his homelessness.

“Danny, there you are! A respectable showing in the maze, I thought. Though riddles clearly aren’t your forte.”

“Yeah, I guess,” said Danny, cringing away from her a little. 

“So, it sounds like there’s a lot of drama back at home about all these ghosts. How do you think your parents felt to hear you speak against their life’s work?”

“You’re assuming they’re…” Danny cut himself off, and Clark really wondered if he had been about to cast doubt on if his parents were watching the broadcast where their son had been abducted to. “They know I disagree with the way they go about things. I really do think it would be great, though, if people could start calling their representatives about the Anti-Ecto acts. They’re a travesty.”

“And is there any reason you feel so personally about this issue?”

It was Danny’s turn to press his lips together at their question. “I hope my parents change their ways. Until they do, I really don’t want to be a part of their legacy.”

“Oh dear! Well, you’re certainly carving out your own as we speak! Then, there’s Tim! Mr. CEO, you’re definitely used to answering an interviewer’s questions.”

Tim gave them a flat look. “No comment.”

“Oh, boo,” they said. “Surely you’d like the opportunity to show the world the real Tim Drake.”

“No comment.”

“And there you have it!” the host called out from the ether. “That’s a wrap for this episode of: Antantlous Presents - The Rise and Fall of Atlas! Tune in next week for another exciting episode where we test the ins and outs of Earth’s most powerful and dangerous citizens! But! Don’t think we’ll leave you hanging in the intervening time. You can tune in every day, 6:00 PM Eastern Standard Time to catch up with what our contestants have been up to. See you then!”

The world went white.